Often, the developmental milestones of their child are gauged as typical within their family and so are surprised when told by an outside source that in fact their child is gifted.

So, how can you tell if your child is gifted? What are the signs? Researchers refer to the early appearance of such developmental signposts as crawling, walking, vocabulary and sentence construction, alertness, social awareness, and physical dexterity as important to note. For example, in normal development of motor ability, children walk unassisted at around 12 months of age, however children showing advanced development may walk unassisted as early as 8 months of age. For many parents, early alertness in children is very noticeable. Gifted children are often intense in their observance of the world around them, focusing on objects and people and listening to sounds with longer than normal attention spans. It is often the attention span of gifted children which warrants the greatest comment from parents. Many parents will relate how their gifted child would want to play games long after their age peers had lost interest, thus causing great frustration in their gifted child. It is important to remember however, that the developmental process may be delayed due to health or environmental issues and, that in some cases, gifted children may deliberately elect not to demonstrate their ability in that area until they are ready. Gifted children generally speak earlier than their age peers, many saying their first words as early as five months of age. However, in some cases, the development of speech is unusual and may leave out many of the steps from sounds to syllables to words to combination of words. For example, one mother related her great concern when her son had not begun speaking at all by two years of age. She took him to the paediatrician, speech pathologist and investigated his hearing but all tests brought back normal results. The speech pathologist suggested that the mother continue to speak to the child, repeating phrases such as "I am Peter, my name is Peter" to her son. One morning, when Peter was two and a half years of age, Peter's mother was repeating these sentences to him whilst making his breakfast. To her surprise, her son looked at her and told her "Mum, I know my name is Peter, I can talk you know." This very gifted boy was not interested in speaking until he had something important to say and couldn't understand the fuss over this. He leapt past all of the intial developmental milestones in speech acquisition to using personal pronouns and simple sentences with adult understandings.

What do you do if your child is gifted? It is important for parents of all children to note down (when possible) the age at which developmental milestones are reached and/or keep written records of anecdotal memories of your child's development. These details may help later when strategies for schooling are being discussed. There are a number of groups and associations who run parenting courses and activities for young gifted children and it often helps for parents to talk with others who are experiencing similar issues in raising gifted children. Most states in Australia have their own gifted associations (see weblinks in the Resource section of the site) as do many of the states in the US. Some universities have resource centres specialising in gifted education such as the University of New South Wales' Gifted Education Research, Resource and Information Centre (GERRIC) and these centres provide support for parents, teachers and students in the form of identification, counselling, courses and ongoing research.

Gifted children need support and acceptance from those who are close to them. They often experience asynchronous development which results in their physical, intellectual and emotional development progressing at different rates. A young child of three years chronological and physical age may be thinking as a seven year old and feeling as a five year old (ie ready to start school, ready to have friends, especially a best friend) and so will experience great frustration when their thoughts and feelings are not understood by those around them. They may not be able to communicate the cause of their frustrations without assistance and so may withdraw "into their heads" (as one mother termed it) to cope.

All gifted children, no matter their age, need the opportunity to spend time with intellectual peers. Many gifted children from the remote or regional areas of a country attending workshops or residential camps for gifted children, often comment on the sense of relief they feel when meeting other children "just like them". It is important for them to know that they are not "strange". "weird" or "alone" and to know that there are other children experiencing life through similar eyes. One of the greatest needs for any human being after food and shelter is love and acceptance and for gifted children, particularly the highly to profoundly gifted, this acceptance can be hard to find among their age peers, resulting in feelings of loneliness and isolation Just as importantly, parents of gifted children may also feel isolated from other parents who may not understand the challenges and frustrations of parenting a gifted child.

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