accelerated development and The Spectrum

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My mom has spoken with other moms of men with asperger syndrome and what they mention repeatedly is that their sons had developmental delays in terms of speech and motor skills. Well I personally had just the opposite: my mom has always told me that I learned to walk by 8 months and by the time I was a year old I was speaking in sentences. Where I started having trouble was learning how to walk up and down stairs....and also I misused personal pronouns. Like when I wanted something I would say: "you want a cookie?" to my mom, how funny . I didnt learn to tie my shoe until I was about 8 or 9 years old. Anyone other parents here have kids on the spectrum who were initially precocious developmentally?

Last edited by Haliphron on 15 Oct 2008, 1:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes. There were quite a few skills my son acquired ahead of time as an infant and toddler. He was widely viewed as highly gifted, IQ wise, and still is, if you don't know about his issues trying to write, trying to tie shoes, and so forth.

It sounds like you are well within the norms for the spectrum as I have come to know them. It is a spectrum; skills and needs vary widely among AS, just as they do among NT's.

What I would say is the most consistent is that AS seem, to me, to rarely be "average" at anything. They are either talented at it, or horrible. There isn't much middle ground.

My son was also an early walker - 9 1/2 months, and talker. His spatial relationships were off-the-charts - he was doing sorting toys meant for 3 year olds before he was a year old, and he loved jigsaw puzzles from a very young age. He's good at math and loves to read. He has trouble getting thoughts on paper, had trouble learning to tie shoes and ride a bicycle.

I have a nephew who spoke in a similiar fashion... when he was a preschooler, he would ask questions like "Do you want to go outside?" a kind of reversal of what his mother was to ask of him so he could answer. That's not Asperger's Syndrome. Besides,
many kids have trouble tying their shoes...it is not an easy skill to master.

In addition, one of the main, outstanding features of Asperger's Syndrome is a developmental delay, not precociousness.


My nephew just started at Cornell University as an Engineering student...and he is very precocious but, was never diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at any time in his life.

I walked at 9months, and so the tripping over myself began!! Also Spoke early. "Whesitgon, whersatat!" Where's the cat ec. 13months simple sentences. Not remarkable, not delayed either, diction increased rapidly. Song lyrics and plays were easier to verbalise than formulating responses to others. Obviously! Worked out how to use things and drew early on. Though handwriting, walking, running and standing without my feet facing inwards were a tad challenging! If someone could explain the latter?!

Because many AS are extremely intelligent, there CAN BE precociousness with AS.

My son had developmental delays in select areas, that did not really become clear until elementary school. It DOES happen. I am EXTREMELY comfortable that his AS diagnosis is correct.

I was much as you describe. I was able to read at fifth grade level in first grade, but didn't learn to tie my shoes until I was nine. I was always more advanced academically than I was in physical development. Physical education was torture for me.

Indeed. I walked early, talked early, etc. My daughter walked at 7 1/2 months, spoke in full sentences by 18 months and had an immense vocabulary. She did not choose to talk often unless she was lost in her own little world, playing by herself. At age 24 months, she learned an alphabet puzzle and all her letter names and sounds in one week. She was reading small words at 2 1/2. However, she could not ride a tricycle until she was 6, could not ride a 2-wheeler until she was 9, and she's always been very clumsy and had a poor sense of her own place in space. HEr teacher even told me she constantly trips on things, bangs into desks, etc. She's 10 now and has an HFA diagnosis from MIND institute and PDD-NOS from REgional Center.

Both of my sons also crawled and walked early, and were early talkers, using full sentences at a very young age and having advanced vocabularies from the earliest age. Both also had amazing capacities for memorizing facts about things they liked (back then it was trains) and learned to read early and fairly easily.

But both are still working on mastering riding their bikes, throwing and catching balls etc. (at 8 1/2 years) and really struggle with printing, tying shoelaces etc. Both also have great difficulty with math.

I was told that having an "uneven skill set" was characteristic of AS. So that it would be typical to excel in some areas but lag behind in others. My sons were considered very precocious as preschoolers, and it came as a surprise when my budding little geniuses struggled to meet even the basic requirements at Kindergarten, even though they were clearly so advanced in certain areas.

Same experience here.