A 17-Month-Old Can Read: Is Elizabeth Barrett a Sheer Genius or a Product of an Educationally-Charged Environment?

Elizabeth Barrett is a beautiful baby. She's a 17-month-old with white-blonde hair that curls around her ears and cute, kissable rosy cheeks. She looks a lot like my own daughter. In fact, they look so much alike they could be twins. I watch her toddling from book to book on the 'Today' show flipping through the pages while her parents and the host talk about how 'gifted' the child is. They say she can read. It's an amazing thing to hear for many parents whose children can't even talk, yet alone read, at 17 months. According to her parents, Katy and Michael, their daughter read her first word in a supermarket from the front of a cereal box. The word was "corn" and Elizabeth was only thirteen months old.

Ann Curry, the hostess of The Today Show begins holding up cards of words and sentences in big block letters and Elizabeth, unfazed, looks for a split second before spitting out the words while Curry looks agreeably shocked. While the viewers watch, she says, "Happy", "Zipper", "Kangaroo", "Flower", and the sentences, "Nice to meet you", "Good morning, Ann" and "Take a bath" though she fumbles when given the sentence, "Throw the ball".

According to What To Expect: The Toddler Years by Arlene Eisenberg, Heidi E. Murkoff, and Sandee E. Hathaway, B.S.N, a 17 month-old toddler should know how to use two words, drink from a cup, build a tower of two cubes, walk up steps, remove an article of clothing, "feed" a doll, build a tower of 4 cubes, identify 2 items in a picture by pointing, combine words, throw a ball overhand, and speak and be understood half the time. It doesn't say anything about children reading at all at this age.

People reading about the story on one message board were concerned about the health of the child and concerned that the child was not necessarily genius, but Hyperlexic, a condition sometimes correlating with Autism. According to the American Hyperlexia Association, Hyperlexia is a syndrome observed in children that consists of, "A precocious ability to read words, far above what would be expected at their chronological age or an intense fascination with letters or numbers, significant difficulty in understanding verbal language, abnormal social skills, difficulty in socializing and interacting appropriately with people". Children with this disorder often progress normally and then begin to regress at 18 to 24 months.

It may be very unlikely that Elizabeth is Hyperlexic. It also is very probable that the child is not the genius everyone is touting her to be. What is very important to note, in this case, is that both of Elizabeth's parents are speech pathologists. Given this very important factor, this story isn't so remarkable at all and other parents need not look at their own children as lesser on the scale of genius.

Children are most definitely a product of their environment. Two speech pathologist parents would very likely be concerned with reading to their child religiously from a very early age. It's also a statement to their success as speech pathologists depending on how well their own child speaks and reads. Why would they not make the largest investment of their time in their own child's education?

The child's father admits they have worked hard with their child including teaching her sign language. The doctor also states that the child may just have very good memory skills. The mother, Katy Barrett, on the other hand, says, "We never dreamed there would be this much interest, really. We went to our local news affiliate just because we couldn't get anyone else to return our call as far as professionals."

She continued saying, "I think, first of all, we really want to say that you have to have reasonable expectations. It's not reasonable for every child to read at a year old. There are some things parents can do to promote early literacy and language learning. We didn't teach her this. We don't sit down and drill her on words. She loves reading books."

I, for one, have a very hard time believing that they approached a news affiliate over this for the reasons she stated. I think they were definitely seeking publicity and why wouldn't they? They have taught their child a very interesting skill that would make headlines. The mother also denies that they taught their daughter how to read, which I think the parents are being modest about. I believe this is a smart child coming from two smart parents who did a very good job with reading and stressing the importance of language to their daughter. It's their life's work and naturally, it was passed along to their daughter through environment. Two parents very gifted in language arts will, naturally, also probably produce a child gifted in language arts, but those talents will not grow at such a young age unless the parents play a very big part.

I have a daughter who is the same age as Elizabeth Barrett and a son who is two-and-a-half. My daughter surely can't read, but she does talk pretty well because I talk to her often throughout the day. My son has had some behaviors that amused friends and family members. When he was just a little older than his sister's current age (around twenty months), he could count to fourteen and name most of his body parts. I wasn't calling news affiliates over it. I knew exactly why he could do both things even though friends and family were really amazed that a child that young counted to fourteen.

So why fourteen and not fifteen? The reason why is because we have exactly fourteen stairs from our upstairs to our downstairs. Every morning, I would hold his hand and we would count the stairs as we walked downstairs. He knew all the names of body parts because it was a game we would play: "Where's Mommy's nose?"

One of my younger sisters was less than two years old and I taught her how to answer the question, "Who's the President?" She would smile really big, act embarrassed and then recite, "George Bush" while looking at her toes. You would then ask her who the Vice President was and she would say, "Dan Quayle". There is nothing cuter than hearing a toddler try to pronounce a name like "Quayle". She could also tell you who the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense were. She was always a hit at parties and family get-togethers.

One of my son's first sentences was, "Where's the remote?" because that's what his father said every time he came home from a long day at work. We thought it was funny, but it was also an impetus for my husband to quit watching so much TV the moment he got home. Little by little, as a parent, you realize the effects your environment has on your child and you realize that being a parent means being a better person.

Elizabeth Barrett's parents should be very proud. Their daughter's advanced reading skills are an attribute directly to them and her environment. They can't say she is just gifted. Children can't learn how to read all by themselves. They may have inadvertently taught their daughter how to read by reading her age-appropriate books and putting emphasis not only on the pictures and actions of the stories they read, but by putting emphasis on the words accompanying the pictures. Sounding out words also helps a child's reading comprehension. There are children, every day, in this world that learn two different languages from bilingual parents. It's all amazing, but a typically underestimated ability many children have that just isn't exercised and developed.

For example, my mother is very gifted in language arts. Naturally, I loved reading and writing from a very early age and read at first grade levels by the age of three. I was continually praised as "gifted" all throughout my schooling years. My mother read to me often and encouraged my ability. My father was a very gifted musician that was even praised on local radio stations as one of the best local guitarists. Unfortunately, my father died very young. I was very interested in music throughout my growing years, but didn't have a suitable outlet. I tried playing the clarinet in the school band, but I hated playing the clarinet and I never really excelled. I was twenty-nine years old when I picked up a guitar and within a year, I was playing extremely well...to the point people that had been playing for years were shocked.

The point of those references are that I may have had a natural talent for playing the guitar, but that talent never would have been evident if I had never picked up a guitar and never practiced. It was evident that I was gifted in language arts because I read and wrote often. The same can be said of Elizabeth Barrett, who appears to have a natural talent for language arts. Where there is smoke, there is fire...and the fire is two parents that care enough to spend quality time reading to their child and teaching her sign language. My daughter shows a knack for reading so I read to her more. My son is very interested in music already (both his father and myself are musicians) so we have provided him with musical toys that really allow him to experiment with sounds.

There has also been a lot of buzz about children that know how to use the toilet at very early ages in recent years. These children were not smarter than other children, necessarily, they just had parents more dedicated to training them at a younger age. Can your child learn to read at an early age? Very possibly. Children who read typically have parents who love to read and who invest time in reading to their children.

As parents, many can learn from this story that only by spending time with your child and taking an active interest in your child's learning and environment will reap the benefits of a bright future for your child. Natural abilities can only get you so far, the rest is up to the parents to provide nourishment for those abilities.

Parents who spend genuine, caring time with their child should learn to take credit every now and then for the smarts their children possess. When it comes to having well-educated children, sometimes you really do reap what you sow.