Get out! "Dottie says..." doesn't work for you either? I'm starting to get a complex!

Well, I do have a lot of conversations with myself, and "Dottie says..." works great!

Great to know! While things are going fairly well with the school at the moment, I had a hard time recently convincing DH that I was an "expert" on these issues on the web, .

Well, tell him, "Kriston says that I'm the brains of the forum!"

Surely *that* will impress him!

Interesting . . . was your DD faster than typical or just faster than DS?

My MG DD who talked before my HG DSs also has language as a strength. She wasn't early in speech development, but her brothers were quite slow, although they read much earlier than she did. When I researched this stuff years ago, the only delay that correlated with poor later cognitive development was language. I wonder if it goes the same way for early language. Can you have 100 words at 12 months and later test with normal IQ? Are there kids that just "decode" well and early but that doesn't translate into some more global ability? I can't help but think that a kid reading at 2 years will be somewhere in the "g" range, but I have no idea if that's actually true.

Well, I think that DD is MG. But she actually started saying "hi" when she was just two or three months old. I sort of didn't believe it myself until my mom noticed it and then one time we were shopping and DD said hi to a little girl in the store. The girl was surprised and said, "Daddy! That baby said hi to me!" DD also used to say "ickle" for "tickle" when she was that age.

DS talked earlier than average, starting about 8 months. His first word was "nuh-nuh" (his word for nursing). By the time he was one he would ask for "nuh-nuh" and then ask for "other side nuh-nuh."

My DH is equally dense, it does work on DS lately, though. And the idea that the person he knows IRL, actually IS Dottie, well that please him very much! He is so impressed!

I'm picturing the dog from "Bush's baked beans" on this one....should I be concerned? ROFL!

I had a conversation today that made me think of the original topic of this thread--what professionals think of GT kids and families.

I was at DS12's school to drop off a form today and the principal stopped me. DS is in middle school 6th grade. I had met with her last spring to get DS set up for this year. I was nervous, but she listened to everything I wanted. She got DS in 3 periods of advanced English/writing/reading. One of those periods only had the 3 most GT kids. He got Algebra with the advanced 8th graders, Orchestra, and then the other usual 6th grade classes (keyboarding, PE, Social Studies and Science). He had a great year.

She said that there was child who was "almost as bright as your DS" who will be starting in 6th. Here is what she said, "The family has been meeting and meeting and meeting with me. They don't believe that we can provide what their DD needs. And I keep thinking we've done OK by your DS. So I wanted to make sure that we really were meeting DS's needs." I told her that they really were doing a good job. And she said, "I just don't know what else to tell them. Could I have them call you? Maybe you could reassure them." I told her I'd be happy to.

Anyway, the story is not to make any of you who have been advocating feel guilty. I advocated too. But I wanted to share the perspective of a hardworking principal who is doing a good job. I am sure that working with parents can be it's own challenge!

On the other hand, maybe their child does need something different from what your DS is getting. Or maybe they see that the principal is not really "getting" their child.

I run into this all the time with the food allergy thing. Principal says, "But this was fine for another student who has a peanut allergy. Why isn't it ok for your daughter?"