The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late

A FANTASTIC read... The "twist" is that it bases the core reason for late talking on heredity ~ specifically tying in close family members with analytically-thinking/based careers and abilities (engineers, scientists, mathematicians, pilots, musicians, etc.) I didn't know this when I purchased the book and wanted to share that specifically. We got a lot from the book because our daughter falls into that category (otherwise the book may not have been as useful to us). "The Einstein Syndrome" provides great insight on "why", what can be done in the meantime and on "early intervention". If you have a late-talking child, as well as analytical minds in the family, this book definitely provides answers. **Also recommended for speech therapists/pathologists who aren't familiar with these recent, brilliant findings.

I purchased the book because my grandson is 16 months old and doesn't talk. He does say "NO" alot. He is very bright being that he knows what you are asking him to do and he does it, but doesn't talk. It concerned me. I have spoken to may mother's who have children the same age, and many of them don't talk either. I don't think it is the norm. Maybe things have changed. I will keep reading.

We have a late talking grandson and this book went a long way in helping us understand his behaviour. Recommended for parents and educators.

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.

Finding out about and reading this book made an incredible difference to our family, and if Dr. Thomas Sowell or a relative/friend of his is reading this review: thank you from the bottom of my heart. Two-and-a-half years ago, at age 2 1/2, my son was definitely going through some kind of developmental slump that included very limited speech. Our assigned speech therapist, though not empowered to diagnose here in Canada, suggested when I probed her that my son was between moderately and severely autistic. Her report, contrary to our expressed wishes, went straight to the developmental pediatrician we took our son to a month later. He confirmed by phone after the appointment that our son was definitely on the autistic spectrum and that a written report would follow in a few weeks. Having read Sowell's book earlier I held out some hope that our son was being misdiagnosed. However, his behavior was at its most erratic and disturbing at that point so for about a dozen days I caved in to despair and these indeed were the worst dozen days of my life. But something Dr. Sowell emphasized in his book kept nagging at me: namely, that diagnosing autism-spectrum disorders is the thing that speech therapists do least well. And, we had the distinct impression that our developmental pediatrician was leaning quite heavily on the speech therapists's report--which we had thought was so extreme that we tried (unsuccessfully) to block it. Despite the gloom, day by day I began to think that the apparent autistic symptoms were displaying themselves fairly infrequently and only partially. So I contacted the two clinicians at the University of Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee whom Sowell recommends for second opinions: Dr. Stephen Camarata (a Ph.D in speech therapy) and his wife Mary Camarata. They responded immediately and sympathetically (by e-mail), a cancellation a few weeks later allowed us to book an appointment, and off the whole family flew from Toronto to Nashville. The Camaratas were brilliant, and FAR better at dealing with our son in an interview situation than the Toronto people had been. They determined within 15 minutes that our son was not only NOT on the autistic spectrum, but not even close to being on it. They suggested that he might have a language disorder that might need some extra help in overcoming, but that was it. Our son subsequently did two years of pre-school at a place that specializes in A-spectrum and language-delay kids, mixed with no-issues kids as well. He did fine, with very little speech therapy, and is talking like a magpie these days. He is now in a public school junior kindergarten and doing great. I tend to think that he's just normal, though quite bright and a real character, rather than an Einstein syndrome kid. However, had it not been for Sowell's book directing us to the Camaratas, we likely would have got caught up in the whole A-spectrum disorder bureaucracy here, and worse, we would have subjected our son to an incredibly expensive and needless behavioural intervention therapy that we had even arranged to begin the very day we instead had our son re-evaluated in Nashville. Put it this way: the best decision I have ever made in my life (I'm 55) was to read Sowell's book and follow his suggestion that a re-evaluation by the Camaratas might be in order. It's been a very happy ending for our son and us, but absent 'The Einstein Syndrome' it would likely have been VERY heavy going.