PASSING INTELLECTUAL MILESTONES EARLY: Many studies show that gifted children tend to start talking early, although walking early does not seem to be linked to higher intelligence. According to the Davidson Institute, while the average child can be expected to utter her first meaningful word around 12 months, the gifted child begins to speak, on average, some two months earlier. The stages of speech acquisition are also passed through earlier; by 18 months the average child has a vocabulary of 3-50 words, but little attempt is made to link them into short phrases until the age of 2; however, in gifted children, linking words into phrases can commence as early as 12 months.
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