Customer Reviews

The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late

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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.

As the parent of a late talking child. I was concerned that he exhibited all of the symptoms quoted by the "experts" for a child with PDD-NOS. Little did I realize that taking him in for a free evaluation by the state would lead to School Psychologists and counselors demanding that I enroll him in their "enhanced" programs. After one psychologist accused me of being "in denial" I sought more information and found "The Einstein Syndrome".

This book helped me understand the political and bureaucratic and academic machinations which are creating this bogus "Autism Epidemic" expecially in California. This book offered my wife and I real hope at a very dark time in our lives.

I've waited almost 2 years to post this review. My son is now a playful, intelligent, affectionate, TALKATIVE 4 year old getting ready for kindergarten. All of the Autism/PDD "symptoms" completely disappeared on their own. And I have the luxury of returning that diagnosis to the psychologist with a big "F" written on it. Just to show there's no hard feelings, though. I plan on giving her a present, a copy of "The Einstein Syndrome".

This is the Follow-up book to Sowell's "Late Talking Children". The first book was mostly anecdotal evidence, but this book includes far more data, from more scientific research. He worked with Dr Camarata, a speech and language pathologist from Vanderbilt university for the research of this book.

Yes, as before, many people will criticize this book, as they did the first. The people who will criticize this book are either the para-professionals that stand to lose money from unnecessary therapies, or the parents of children with serious issues who read no further than the dust jacket, and don't read the book with a critical enough eye to realize whether or not their child actually fits this special sub-set of late speakers. We have a strong family history of speech delays, and math intensive careers. Both my husband and father in law fit the profile, as engineers, both late speakers. I am such a strong advocate of this book, as I am a mother of 3 late speakers who fit the profile so closely it is almost scary to see it in print. It is as if they have been watching my household. All 3 of my late speakers are now speaking, and all share the extremely advanced mechanical and spatial perception skills addressed in the profile.

If your child is not speaking, and you see a spark of intelligence in his eyes READ the book, and really analyze your child. Don't just say, "Well some kids grow out of it, mine will too", take a serious look to see if your child does indeed fit the profile. If your child doesn't fit the profile, don't criticize this line of research, as this is a REAL sub-set of late speakers, even if it is not where your child is. If the child DOES fit the profile, there are a great many support groups out there for parents of these odd little guys.

I am a proud father of a late talking child and I am grateful for this book as I know many other parents who read this book are who also have late talking children. After I read this book I told my parents about it and much to my surprise my mother told me I did not speak myself in full sentences until I was about 3 years old. Conventional wisdom is not what this book is about which is why some readers do not come to terms with the reality of this subject. This book clearly states that majority of late talking children do NOT have the Einstein Syndrome and goes on to say that the child should be evaluated to determine the cause.

The point of this book is to enlighten people about the fact that many of these late talking children are exceptionally bright who go on to become successful adults which is contrary to conventional wisdom that may indicate something is wrong with these children. The pattern explained in this book is key to understanding this phenomenon which is not explored enough or correctly by medical experts who sometimes are quick to label a child as having ADD or being autistic. The children examined in this book all have very unique characteristics and their parents and close relatives are in very particular fields. All the data that was collected in this book is identical to my family's situation. My father is a high level musical instructor and I am a senior analyst in computer technology field. My son is almost 2 and a half years old has only a handful of words and is yet to put a sentence together but he is extremely bright. He has some social anxiety with strangers. He is extremely strong willed and on occasions throws big tantrums. He also has some allergies. He is really good with puzzles and in fact puzzles are his favorite thing. He constantly figures out how to take apart the safety gates I install in the doorways which also something the author mentioned about his own son. He knows how to work the TV/DVD player and my laptop and many other things that point to the fact that his brain is developing differently and he is analytically advanced but is behind in speech. I point all these characteristics out which are the same with other unique children mentioned in this book. We do have a great speech therapist but went through two other ones who did not click with our son so finding the right speech therapist is extremely important. He is currently making good progress with his speech as he seems to pick up a new word in every session the speech therapist works with him. He also goes to pre-school 3 days a week and even though he is not able to communicate with his peers or teachers he is able to get his feeling and actions understood with his gestures/eye contacts and a few words that he says. It is clear to me that he will start talking when his brain is developed to handle speech as mentioned in this book regardless of all therapies. Of course Einstein was the extreme case of a late talking child who became one of the greatest minds this world has ever known but there are many other great minds who were late talkers as it will be the case with many future late talking children.

I have no doubt in my mind that my son will grow up to be a successful and happy person as I am who also was a late talking child. I did have some social difficulties as a young man but now I have a very loving wife with two wonderful children and a great career. I did not receive any speech therapy when I was a child. Today's society and so called experts have created an unfair pressure on today's children to start talking at a certain age. Early intervention is not always the answer and not all children are the same.

I also ended up in the engineering/analytical field as did many of the adults mentioned in this book who were late talking children. I am also another living proof of this syndrome and a testimony to this research and this great book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is open-minded and is willing to understand what this book is really talking about. One should also apply their common sense and intuitions when dealing with a late talking child as all children are different and so is their physical and mental development.

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.

If you have a child that is late with speech development, seems frustrated with communications, strong willed & defiant, prone to tantrums, good at solving puzzles, loving but sometimes aloof, concentrates on some tasks, ignores requests to perform other tasks, not the least interested in potty training, exhibiting some autistic or PDD tendancies but having exceptional memory and suprising intelligence, then you need to get this book. Don't be put off by reviews of the professionals, the book has some information that will help concerned parents bypass those professional egos and cut to the main issue, how to best understand and help your child.

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!

This book explained my son to me. He is 3 years and 9 months old and just beginning to speak conversationally. Our family fits the profile so well it's almost scary.

_The Einstein Syndrome_ also gives practical advice and needed warnings to parents about dealing with the institutions and therapists who evaluate their children. Thomas Sowell reminds us parents that we are our children's best advocates and that our knowledge, feelings, and opinions about our children do count. Even if your child doesn't fit the profile, the book is worth the information on handling the professionals.

This book is NOT a dangerous read. Dr. Sowell clearly states that speech therapy can be beneficial, but to be selective. A wrong diagnosis is as close as your local school district! Truly, these semi-professionals are interested in having a steady stream of new prospects, so caution is in order.
This book is a must-read for all parents of late talking children. I could not wait to read this book! My son fits this profile perfectly, and yet I knew that before reading this that he was very intelligent. He was not autistic, or in the autistic spectrum. He did not suffer from any other delays, speech being the only one. Now, he is six years old. He is an articulate, reading, six year old! After waiting four years to hear him talk, his progress has been remarkable. This book discusses brain maturation, reasons for the delay, and what to do about it. A book of hope, and reason. Recommended!

Thomas Sowell is an economist. He writes excellently about politics. But he needs to butt out of a field in which he has no expertise, especially when his conclusions are so profoundly irresponsible.

Thomas Sowell's own child had language delays. It's as if he is protesting too much -- he wrote a whole book so the whole world would know his child was perfect, after all. Then there are a whole bunch of incomplete andecdotal reports of other bright children who talked late, and why. The reader has no additional information about these children's level of functioning in other domains. How do they socially? How do they function in school? How is their executive functioning? Are we sure they really talked late? Are their pediatrician's reports? He does not even define what he means by "talking"?

For the purposes of his book, he should define talking in order to be able to demonstrate what it means when these children "talk late." After all, "mutism" is an actual disorder. Is he saying they never uttered a sentence? Never gestured? Never pointed? Or did these children really go years and years without uttering a syllable? When did anyone notice that this was an issue, contemporaenously or in retrospect? It would be useful to view the comments and concerns of their pediatricians.

Throughout the book, Sowell talks about Labelling, as if Labelling were an evil to be avoided. But what is so mystifying is that speech therapy is painless. Its effectiveness is well-established. Labelling will not keep the kid out of the CIA in 25 years. What is Sowell advocating? A child who can't tell you what he wants gets infuriated and frustrated, demoralized and unhappy. That's why the child should get speech therapy. And Sowell is selfish for gambling on his child's neurological future to -- let's face it -- save his pride.

For babies, it matters less. They're tired, lonely, scared, hungry, wet, cold, hot or something hurts. Almost all of it can be remedied by feeding, changing, cuddling and soothing, unless it's a medical problem. In contrast, toddlers, they have more complicated needs. They don't want grape juice, they want milk. They don't want their noodles touching the sauce. They want the purple truck. It's his turn to play on the slide. The TV is too loud. He wants to watch Teletubbies, not Mr. Rogers. It is only fair that a toddler be able to engage in age-approriate verbal communication for that reason. There is no defensible reason to prevent a toddler with a communication problem from getting help in being able to communicate.

I would also note that with very specifically-delimited exceptions, none of which seem to be encompassed by this book, there are very few happy loners. Some kids give up because their social skills are bad, but most people are social animals -- whether they enjoy the company of one or two trusted people or they are total social butterflies. A child should be taught social skills at an early age so that he can make the choice on his own terms, not because his social skills are so poor that society makes those choices for him. That renders a child miserable and powerless and, by the time he is in middle school, a target for bullying.

And anyone who has witnessed children of any intellectual level who are frustrated because they can't get their basic needs met -- due to a lack of ability to communicate them -- would understand that this is a matter of compassion, not dogma.

Meanwhile, the authors offer no justification of any kind for their position that these children should be denied help.