The Einstein Syndrome??

After Ry was diagnosed and evaluated to be having speech delay and having the ability of a 17 mth old toddler, it definitely starts getting us worried. However, being an educator myself and many gentle reminders and assurances of the evaluators as well as friends, I definitely am aware that the purpose of the evaluation is for reference and should not be taken overly seriously as Ry is still pretty young to follow all the instructions given by the evaluators who are strangers and as parents, we all know, sometimes kids just march to their own drums. There are so many factors that affect the validity of an evaluation and it is a well-known fact that evaluation done with young children is often a hit and miss thing if it is only done one time, not to mention the fact that the results were normalized, often assuming that all kids follow a general pattern of development. Thanks to Dan for reminding me that the results may be normed against the US population instead of Asian / SG population as well.

Still, as parents, I would like to help Ry to speak sooner and was exploring the Internet for tips and tools to do so. While I was searching on the Amazon for the dvd series " Signing Times" as introduced by my friend here for young children to learn American Sign Language (ASL) which is also often used by speech therapists, I came across this book title "The Einstein Syndrome - Bright Children Who Talk Late" by the Stanford Professor Thomas Sowell. Immediately I was drawn to the title and upon reading the synopsis, I decided to order the book to read. It only took me approximately 3 days to finish reading the book and most of the reading was done while breastfeeding Br.

What was interesting for me is the many similarities that I found between Ry and the different stories of late talking children written in the book. According to the author, children who had the Einstein Syndrome has the following characteristics:

1. Outstanding and precocious analytical abilities and / or musical abilities
2. Outstanding memories
3. Strong wills
4. Highly selective interests, leading to unusual achievement in some areas and disinterests and ineptness in others
5. Delayed toilet training
6. Precocius ability to read and / or use numbers and or/use computers
7. Close relatives in occupations requiring outstanding analyatical and/or musical abilities
8. Unusual concentration and absorption in what they are doing

The first striking similarity is definitely characteristic number 7 and most kids in the research study has parents in the engineering / scientific field. So in our case, daddy is a scientist and mummy is a Chemistry teacher and we therefore fit the profile closely. Next, Ry displays quite a few of the characteristics. He definitely has very strong musical sense and this is commented by his previous Music Together instructor, adults who have seen him as well as the Speech Therapist who saw him this morning and marvelled at his ability to stop beating the drums when music stops and able to beat the drums softly when she gently strummed the guitar. Ry is also definitely very strong willed - a comment also made many times by my mother during her short stay with us. In fact, at times, I would say he is extremely stubborn. Also, Ry has an unusual concentration and absorption in what he is doing that he often ignores us when we call for him. In addition, he likes to observe and understands the rules first, often in new situations before he engages in participation, which to me, is often baffling because I often see other kids jump and run straight to the playground or toys. It is also mentioned in the book that many such late talking kids are very good at solving puzzles or are fascinated with locks. Similarly, Ry at the young age of 9 months old when he was barely standing was able to unscrew a bolt and nut underneath our dining table and was able to screw it back on his own. I remembered I was so surprised when he first did this and almost got a heart attack as I was worried that he may have accidentally swallowed the small nut or the table may have collapsed on him if he had gone around unscrewing all of them. In fact, his fascination with nuts and bolts lasted for quite a while and we had to be rather stern with him to stop him from unscrewing them underneath the table. Even now, he would still go around unscrewing things around the house like knobs on the toilet cabinets and then screwing them back on again.

What really connects to me about the book is how the author mentions about parents often ended up blaming themselves for having late talking child especially sometimes after insensitive comments from neighbours, family members, doctors and other adults. I have definitely experienced many of these episodes like some nurses or doctors here suggested that probably his late talking is a result of exposing him to 2 languages at home, my mother suggesting to me that we probably did not expose him to much babbling and language at home during his first year when we were busy, my MIL asking me insensitively why is Ry talking so late since no one at home talks this late and many other more little episodes like these. All these little comments and suggestions have insinuated my failure as a mother and I do find myself dispairing quietly sometimes, and these negative feelings sometimes led me getting angry with Ry when he refused to babble after me or learn a new word.

Instead, the study by Professor Sowell gives me a new perspective why some children are late talking and gives me the hope that Ry's late talking may be the result of an innate syndrome rather than due to external factors and most importantly, he will turn out fine someday. His research shows that the median age for such late talking kids to start talking is at three and a half years old and some of them as late as four. And the good news is that these kids will ultimately start talking without any form of early intervention and they usually grow up to become sociable and successful adults without much problems.

While reading this book and excitedly sharing the information with K, I was repeatedly teased by him saying that does it mean Ry is Einstein or genius? My answer is definitely a big NO since my only reasons for reading this book is to make me more informed about late talking children and I am not out to prove that Ry has superior intelligence. As a mother, my only wish for Ry is for him to grow up to be a happy and healthy child and to guide him in the way he should be.