The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late

Rating:
Summary: interesting, but seemed a little amateurish
Review: I am surprised that a man with Sowell's academic credentials didn't do a better job of presenting (extremely limited) research. The two "research studies" he refers to are his extremely informal one with only about 50 subjects and another vaguely described one by Stephen Camarata with about 250 subjects. The point of this book is that there appears to be a subset of late-talkers with above-average math and/or mechanical and/or musical abilities and they are usually boys. Sowell objects to how these children are frequently labeled with "disorders," especially autism. I don't know much about this, but it was my understanding that autism is a wide-spectrum disorder and nothing in this book proved to me that many of these "late-talking" children Sowell writes about aren't simply borderline cases. It wasn't very reassuring to me - the very mathmatical mother of a bright but speech delayed 23 month-old. But Sowell admits that he is not an expert in this field and it seems that he has collected, analyzed and presented more information about this group of children than anyone else. But what I found objectionable about the book was his hostility towards teachers, speech therapists, and the like. I'm sure some are good and some are lousy, but to describe them as "semi-professionals" suggests to me an extremely biased mindset. He also takes quotes from parents who disagree with him that he finds on the internet and tears them apart. One in particular was from a mother who explained that she didn't want her son to just be good in math. She wanted him to enjoy drama, peotry and liturature. Seems reasonable to me, but Sollow apparently can't tolerate any suggestion that these children might have shortcomings, however minor. This attitude might be more understandable if he extended his tolerance of different aptitudes to other categories of children. But he describes a child with an I.Q. of 98 as being two points below normal! Overall, it was worth reading and I give Sollow credit for tackling the topic. But I hope more information about this cluster of abilities/delays becomes available.

Rating:
Summary: Thankful this book came along when it did!
Review: I came across this book right as I was becoming concerned about my son's lack of progress in developing expressive language even though he understood everything we said and could communicate very well non-verbally. Right away, I recognized my son in this book and it gave me hope right when I needed it the most.

I worked in schools as an occupational therapist for several years prior to having my first child, and have worked extensively with speech therapists. The book does often portray school personnel in an unflattering way, but this portrait comes from many parental accounts of their bright, late talking children being misdiagnosed and the heartbreak that followed.

Now that I'm a parent whose child is being evaluated rather than the evaluator myself, I can see both sides of the story. This book has been very valuable to me, as it has reassured me and encouraged me to trust my instincts about my own child. It has also helped me to focus on the many positives of my son, rather than dwelling on his slow progress in developing speech. It has meant a great deal to me to know that my son is not alone, that there are in fact many children out there who are bright children who talk late. One of them was born 30 years before my son, and she went on to write this review!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Yet Limited
Review: This book makes the excellent point that not all children with speech or language delays have cognitive deficits. And it is clear that there is a specific subset of children who have speech or language delays that have many specific elements in common -- the immediate relatives in analytical professions, etc. My first-born son, now 6, had speech and language issues until very recently, and if there were a "disorder" called Einstein Syndrome, he would be the one to have it. Now he is reading at the third- or fourth-grade level, at least, and has an excellent vocabulary, and that is just for starters. Clearly, there was nothing wrong with my son's intellect or his capacity for language. Was he just a late bloomer?

My real quarrel with this book is philisophical -- that the authors don't want these children "labelled," as if labelling were a bad thing, and it does not offer suggestions about how to respond to the fact that a child might have this syndrome. If the author makes the very valid point that some children who talk late are bright or of average intelligence, he should not end the inquiry there. Some children in his study don't talk at all. They're silent. Some, like mine, are voluble -- they talk all the time. But until very late, you can't understand a word they're saying. Why is that? Is that just a random thing?

Personally, I think that this syndrome is not a unified disorder, and a lot of the issues look like either Sensory Integration Issues or Asperger's Syndrome. But even if research shows this to be a unified disorder, now what? The authors are really suggesting that the parent merely clutch this book and smile when confronted by educators, passers-by, onlookers, grandparents, in-laws, friends, pediatricians, dentists and mechanics, who ask what's wrong with the child? Who throw diagnoses out? And what of the child with limited social skills? Is it responsible to indulge oneself in the avoidance of labelling, even though the existence of a label might allow children to get services outside a private setting? (Because even if a child will learn eventually to talk on his own fine, is it fair to have a 28-month-old in preschool who cannot make himself understood at all, if six months of speech therapy will fix the problem and doing nothing means the child will be unintelligible for twelve or eighteen months?). Is it fair to just smile and clutch the book if some of these children have social skills deficits that could be fixed with the same kind of training given children with Asperger's syndrome? Don't these children deserve to go through their toddler and preschool years without having all the adults in their lives look at them and shake their heads? Don't they deserve the same chance at a normative social life as any other cognitively normal, or gifted, child?

Contrast this book with The Out-of-Sync Child, by Carol Kranowitz, which not only describes a little-known but legitimate syndrome, but also gives suggestions for treatment and even things that can be done at home to make life less uncomfortable for sufferers of sensory integration disorder.

It may be that the Einstein Syndrome is a unified disorder, and the book makes an excellent case with regard to a discrete population of children who would otherwise be misdiagnosed. But the inquiry feels like watching someone begin a sentence and then stop talking too soon.