Bright Children Who Talk Late - The Einstein Syndrome

I found the subject of late talking children very interesting and intriging. I have a 21 month old grandson who has not begun to talk at all....not even Mama, DaDa, Bye Bye. He constantly babbles. He has been checked for hearing as well as an overall analysis of his motor skills, social interests, etc., and has come out with an above average rate. We are just interested in how he progresses over the next year or so to see if he has above intelligence. He enjoys working on puzzles that are for 3 or 4 year children; not always completing them, but enjoys the challenge until he gets too frustrated.

When I read The Einstein Syndrome it was amazing how much of my son I saw in it. Many of the things mentioned were things I had wondered about, and worried about. But reading this book has given me an entirely new outlook on my 3 yr old son.
This book is wonderful for parents that have children who are late talkers, yet don't fit any other criteria for Autism or other labels.
I would definately recommend this book to anyone who has a late talking child in their family. Your child may not fit in the Einstein syndrome, but if he/she does, then this book is an absolute must!

The Einstein Syndrome is an informative follow-up of Thomas Sowell's Late Talking Children. Since my daughter and I share all the characteristics that Thomas Sowell writes about, it is quite refreshing and supporting to read about his and Professor Stephen M. Camarata's research. Sowell is a much needed pioneer on the research of bright late-talking children that share various characteristics such as: outstanding analytical abilities, and/or musical abilities, outstanding memories, strong wills, delayed toilet training, close relatives in analytical occupations (ex. engineers) and/or musical abilities, and other interesting characteristics that he describes in his book. Sowell writes about the frustrations a parent can go through with professionals misdiagnosing, to friends and family unthoughtful comments, to schools mislabeling for their own funding purposes. Sowell gives insightful examples of late-talking children and adults who talked late. He goes on to discuss the controversy on early intervention for this particular group of children. He does suggest that a child be evaluated by two separate independent professionals, to skip the "free" school district evaluation, and at the same time be an advocate for your child. Thomas Sowell encourages research and studies on the Einstein syndrome as well as more inovative and challenging educational approaches for these children. My gratitude goes to Thomas Sowell for writing such a wonderful book and if everyone must have a label, my daughter and I will take the Einstein syndrome.

This book is both exhausting and empowering.

It is exhausting because the author uses more anecdotal evidence gathered from such places as people who called in to radio shows he appeared on and online chats he has led than scientific studies. Also, every couple of pages he bashes home the point that not all late talkers are autistic, and yet throws around the `A' word incessantly in talking about how so many authority figures are quick to label such children as such. In Sowell's world, every late talker is labeled autistic at some point; in our experience with our three-year-old daughter, the word was thrown out in the context of, `We don't THINK she's autistic.' (We did have an awful, incompetent speech therapist at one point, though; such a thing, it seems, is required in navigating the wonderful world of speech delays.) He would have done well to balance this out with the actual symptoms of autism so people who are not sure can check their children against a more comprehensive list rather than deciding based on cherrypicking from a menu of symptoms.

It is empowering because it has made me think of my daughter in a different way. Instead of focusing on the fact that she happens to be slower to talk than her peers (okay, she tested in the first percentile), I have come to enjoy watching her learn, celebrating what she CAN do. She'd barely turned two and was categorizing her blocks by color. She loves books and inventively acts out what is read to her, and even recites back (in her Esperanto) what she's heard after the lights are out. She can spot the tiniest detail half a block away, insistently matches her hair bands to her clothes, can't get enough of puzzles and can operate electronics with shocking expertise. She has better rhythm than most drummers, and is fascinated with calling out letters and numbers she sees on signs and around the house. She's stubborn. And oh--she's affectionate and clearly has empathy. And oh yes, she has near relatives who are engineers, artists and professional musicians. Is she an Einstein kid? Who knows; she's not solving 200-piece puzzles and hasn't dissected anything, but she's not disinterested in either. Not all kids who are late talkers are Einstein kids, and not all Einstein kids are autistic.

Sowell--an economist, not a speech pathologist--postulates some interesting ideas, most notably that is that the real estate in the brain overdevelops (relatively) in some areas in contrast to those speech-producing areas. Causation is unclear, but pathological studies have shown a literal size difference in such areas where one trait is favored over another. This is something I would have liked to have seen more of in the book. In the end, Sowell succeeded in posing stories and situations that have no resolution. Three stars.

This book was comforting in that it explains why some children are late talkers. Often, there's a lack of understanding from parents and relatives on why children talk late. Parents get blamed in a lot of these cases by people who don't understand that not all children are the same. Whether your child is bright but talks late or whether your child talks late because of autism, you, the parent, need to find out. If you want to learn some strategies you can use as a parent to communicate with your child, then I would recommend a book called More Than Words by Fern Sussman.

As one of the "semi-professionals" Sowell references (a Floor Time therapist working in a not-for-profit Los Angeles clinic), I found Sowell's book compelling and interesting (I read it in one sitting) but incomplete. Along with Sowell, I agree that a baffiling amount of bias and incomptence can be found in a variety of schools/programs/clinics designed to treat children with special needs. I myself felt inadequately trained/prepared by my clinic before being assigned to cases. However, unlike many of the other "semi-professionals", I have a desire to learn as much as possible about the study of speech delays (particularly Austism and PDD).

Specifically, I picked up this book because of a 2-year-old client I am currently seeing who seems particularly bright but who has been identified as 'at-risk' for Autism on the FEAS scale. He currently recieves almost 20 hours a week of 'early intervention' services and both his parents and I worry that this much therapy may be innapropriate for a child of his age and functioning abilities. At the very least, Sowell's book reminded me of my own limitations as a diagnostician, the importance of positive, open, sympathetic interaction with parents, and the importance of embracing a client's individual differences while developing their intervention program.

However, although Sowell presents a compelling case for the existence of a subset of 'late-talkers' whose development is possibly further compromised by intervention services, his book offers little practical advice for parents of such children other than telling them to seek evaluations from a variety of clinical and medical experts. He makes little if no reference to the importance of factoring a child's receptive language ability and a child's ability to signal a want/desire using complex gestures in determining the likelihood of future 'spontaneous' language abilities.

Additionaly, Sowell makes several one-sentance disclaimers about not offering parents "false-hope". However, it seems likely that there are more parents of special needs children like the one on p. 145 who might interpret Sowell's theories as an endorsement of a 'wait-and-see' attitude.

I firmly recommend this book to anyone with a child who has a speech delay or has been diagnosed with autism (although the child is very social). The book gives a very objective view of the syndrome and it's manifestations. The information did help me better cope with my own child and understand why he has such a speech delay.

The content is excellent; a valuable book devoted to a neglected subject. Unfortunately, the print quality was terrible. Even though I returned the first book that I received, the replacement was the same, numerous pages where the outer inch of printing was blurred, and for all practical purposes, unreadable. Very disappointing for a product from the store! Even though I advised the store of the nature of the problem on the first book, they didn't bother to check the replacement book.

As the father of a bright, but late talking three year old boy, I read this book with interest. There is of course much here to give hope to the worried parent of such a child.
My fear is that for some people this will be all they need to adopt a 'wait and see' policy. The boundries of high functioning autism and eccentric personality are not well defined, particularly in the young child. I have come to believe it is much wiser to address speech delay and it's commonly associated behaviours aggressively. If all turns out well by the age of five, so much the better. If however your child does in fact lie somewhere on the autistic spectrum then you will have let him or her down by doing nothing at this early stage.
Lastly, my personal experience of speech therapists and other professionals working with late talking children is quite contrary to what Mr Sowell writes. Most are seemingly inundated with work and often it is left to the parents to push for the services their kids are entitled to.

This author is dangerous to the general public. Yes, we all know of the many "Einstein" type children that didn't talk until after typical ages. But as an early intervention specialist that deals with parents on a daily basis, many who are not ready to deal with their child's diagnosis or accept that a delay is present, this is just allowing them to further refute the fact that their child may need intervention. What child has actually ever "suffered" from receiving speech/language therapy???? My own son had an articulation disorder (which was obvious) & during the evaluation, did not answer questions, therefore scored as a child with a severe language delay. I didn't believe this was the case as I was a special ed teacher, trained to determine expressive language delays & based on all the available data (Kindergarten teacher interview, standardized assessment score from K, the initial SLP that worked with him throughout K, psychologist who attempted to assess a VAD, etc... I knew he probably didn't have a language disorder.. To be sure however, I let him receive language therapy.....6 months after he was in the program, his test scores jumped to age equivalency. Did he suffer from this, NO, however he did benefit from learning to trust others to ANSWER questions in testing situations & not worry about being wrong.

After reading this, and reading all the different reviews, the same conclusion comes up. Each individual child is different, so you can't assume every child is going to fit this profile. Please... parents... seek professional help early if you see your child is developmentally slow. Don't wait, the longer you do, the more harm it can do to your child. Early intervention is key to giving your child strategies and therapy to help them with whatever issues they've got. Go to a speech language pathologist, an audiologist who specializes in childhood disorders, and get many tests done. Do it NOW! You'll never be disappointed that you did it too soon, but you will if it's done too late.

"Everything...is going to be...all right." (Words of comfort spoken by the ridiculous "Affirmation Doll" showcased on the television show "American Inventor")

This book tells scared people what they want to hear. Unfortunately, pretty words don't change reality for kids with developmental disorders. I despise this book because of how much harm it can cause! Ignoring a gash in your leg won't make it go away, but may lead to an infection. Denying your child's issues is just as unhealthy, and can cause life-long difficulties.

This book encourages you to compare your child and your family to an Einstein profile, and if the match is there, just relax and wait for your child to grow up and learn on her own. For some children this course of action could cause them irreparable developmental damage.

My son is 3 1/2 years old and still cannot speak more than the first letter of a word ("puh" for please is about as close to a word as he can do right now). He fits the profile for an Einstein Syndrome kid, as does our family. I am an engineer with a math minor who plays the piano and guitar; my wife has a college degree in music, although she considered majoring in physics. Once you consider our extended families, it's hard to find a family that fits the profile better than ours.

Yet I'm convinced that our son would not have made much of his recent progress if he had not received the attention of the therapists this book tells us to avoid. Our son has benefited greatly from the early intervention services he has received from caring, knowledgeable professionals. If I followed the advice of this book my son would be worse off than he is today, and would be even less likely to one day live a "normal" life.

We have witnessed none of the drawbacks of having our son "labeled" with a diagnosis. His diagnosis has never caused anyone to treat him with any less consideration than they would under other circumstances. On the other hand, his diagnosis has opened doors to resources that would not have been available otherwise.

If you avoid going to the dentist because you fear he'll say you have a cavity, you might enjoy this book. If you think you can turn junk food into a gourmet meal by giving it a fancy name, this book is for you. If, on the other hand, you tend to face reality and to seek help where help is needed, then this book will be of no more use to you than an Affirmation Doll would be.

The entire premise of this book is apocryphal and anecdotal, and presents a travesty of science and the scientific method. Sowell is an economist, not a psychiatrist or pediatrician.

Einstein did NOT have speech delays. None. That's a myth. There is no credible Einstein biographer who makes this claim and no reasonable evidence for it cited in the book. In fact, when Einstein started school, his mother wrote letters to family about how well he was doing, no mention of speech delays.

So why do we recycle this lie? Because, as Sowell shows with his constant self-reassurance that his son is brilliant, we find it reassuring. Who doesn't want to believe that a nonverbal kid is secretly a genius?

Despite Sowell's claims to the contrary, "Einstein syndrome" is nothing new. It's called asynchronous development, and most gifted children have it. My own autistic 5-year-old is confirmed to be highly gifted, with the verbal and literacy development of an 8- to 9-year-old, but the gross motor, social, and emotional development of a toddler. Any child expert can tell you that this is not unusual.

But here's the thing: being gifted does not negate having delays. She is not magically made advanced in one area by being advanced in another. I wouldn't make her social an motor skills catch up to her language skills simply by ignoring them. Children with delays need to have them addressed, gifted or not.

That's where we get to how dangerous this book is. Many, many parents read it for reassurance that their kids are just fine and don't need help, and that can and will permanently damage a child's development. A boy at my daughter's school had parents who ignored his extremely delayed speech until age 6, believing that he had Einstein syndrome, when they found out much too late that he was profoundly deaf. How much better off would he be if they had paid attention instead of giving themselves so many false reassurances?

Here's my advice to parents of other kids with asynchronous development: don't be afraid. Despite what you may have heard, there is nothing wrong with having autism. My favorite things about my kid are symptoms of autism. She's a delight. She's the smartest person I have ever known. I wouldn't change anything about her, but I get her the help she needs to thrive. Instead of running from a diagnosis because you know your kid is bright, embrace the diagnosis-- and know that your kid is still perfect exactly the way he is.