When Tyler was six, we walked into the living room to see him quietly drawing away on a piece of paper. He had been watching Star Wars, but paused it on a frame of Yoda. When I looked at what Tyler was drawing, I was shocked. This is what he drew:
Now, I realize I'm Tyler's Mama and as such, I'm hugely biased. But even trying to keep my objective hat on, I think this drawing is pretty remarkable for a six-year old. I'm not sure too many adults could draw that off the tv with such symetry.
Here is another example of a Pokemon character the Tyler copied from a book at the same age:
And just today, Tyler told me that he does in fact have some colors for letters and days of the week, indicating that he is also a synesthete (i.e., someone who experiences synesthesia) like Meredith (see this earlier post on Meredith's synesthesia). Just for the record, Tyler said his days of the week are colored as follows: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He described his letter "a" as illustrated below. Tyler spent time with me on the computer to get the turquoise background, the font for the letter "a", and shadow on the letter just right. I find it interesting that it is three-dimensional. As with most synesthetes, the colors and details are very, very specific. That's usually how I know that someone is actually "seeing" the color and not just making it up.
I'm going to keep this as a record and see if it remains stable over time. If you are a synesthete, you too can record your synesthetic experience for a large study called the Synesthesia Battery that Dr. David Eagleman is conducting at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
I once corresponded with a doctural student in England who studied at what age synesthesia emerges in children. She found that it seems to emerge in the early elementary years. This could be why Tyler never said he had colored letters before, but now he does--he's now in Second Grade.
This discussion about Tyler illustrates two points that I want to share with you:
(1) Visual thinking is genetic, and
(2) Sibling IQs are closer than you think.
Dr. Cheri Florance says that brainprints -- or basically the way you think -- is genetic to some degree. It is very commonplace that if there is one predominantly visual thinker in a family, there will be many more. Take my family, for example. My father was an electrical engineer and designed nuclear plants. My mother was an English teacher, but also is a talented watercolor painter. My oldest brother is a brilliant engineer and mathemetician as well, and my second oldest brother is a talented architect (hello visual-spatial talent!). I have had various positions and interests, but have been drawn to the visual arts as well with photography (www.angelaeatonphotography.com). My youngest sister has found her niche in nature study and also has various visual arts as hobbies (www.montanapulpworks.com). Those weren't shameless plugs--just wanted to give you something to look at!
Doctors, engineers, mechanics, artists, hair stylists, graphic designers, computer programers, first responders--these are all examples of highly visual career paths. It is interesting to look at people's hobbies as well. If you have a highly visual person in your family, look at a little closer at the family picture to see if you see this trait more often than not.
To my second point, Dr. Linda Silverman (the person who coined the original term "visual-spatial") explains that siblings generally are within 5 - 10 points of each other's IQ scores (go here for more information). I mention this because I think it is very common for parents to say that one of their children is gifted and the other is not. Dr. Silverman discusses how often the second child will have very similar traits, but because they compete with the first-born child to some degree, their gifted traits may manifest themselves differently. It is worth giving your "non-gifted"children a second look!
A note on "gifted." Who really knows what gifted means. There are many different definitions by many different institutions. I don't like to toss that word around and proclaim to the world that I have "gifted kids." What I have found, however, is a pretty high correlation with what I'm reading on the "overexcitabilities" and high-intensity nature of gifted kids and my own kids. I have found the literature on the emotional needs of the gifted to be extremely helpful in dealing with my kids. It is really in this context that I talk about gifted.
