Is it possible to gauge an infant's (7 months) intelligence by how often and how long they seem to examine things?

Too soon to tell. Differences for sure but not necessarily indicative of intelligence.

I think every parent wants to think their child is very smart, and that’s why children are evaluated by objective professionals. I also think it’s too soon to tell, as @janbb said.

No.

It would seem so.

Interesting @the100thmonkey. And excerpt from the article noted, ”...infants who have experienced a greater variety of stimulating conditions (within certain limits) may be better able to incorporate novel information into solutions than infants who had a more restricted novel experience.”

It just hit me that I am comparing twins, exactly the same age, in exactly the same environment. Maybe that’s what I’m finding so fascinating about their very different personalities and behaviors. Would you say there are there predictors of future personalities inherent in them? If so, why not predictors of intelligence?

Not quantitatively.

Ok, I’m more carefully reading the article that @the100thmonkey posted. From what I understand thus far, the infants that spend less time time looking at a known stimuli vs the infant that spends more time looking at known stimuli, could be processing the information more quickly.

However, from what I’m seeing with the twins, Savannah spends more time looking at things that haven’t caught Kale’s attention yet, whereas Kale spends time looking at the same old things, but scans through them quickly.

This is going to be interesting!

As far as I understand it, which isn’t very much, you can’t gauge it at this point.

Not unless you are Vulcan.

I am. a Vulcan. A Grandma Vulcan. Where do you come from @AstroChuck???

One twin is a boy and the other is a girl, there are gender differences in brain development, but variability is great across all children’s development. Still, male babies often are quicker to develop motor skills and female babies often develop language skills a bit sooner. Yes, these are gross generalizations and there are many exceptions, but this may account for some of the differences you’re observing in how they are processing their experiences.

@Dutchess_III They sound like so much fun! :0)

I was going to mention the gender differences, but @hearkat beat me to it.
Every child develops differently. My son is very intelligent. When he was a baby I was worried that something was wrong because he didn’t start talking at an early age. Once he started, however, he never stopped! lol
His pediatrician pointed out to me that he wasn’t really talking because all he needed to do was point and grunt and I’d give him what he wanted. I had to make him start working for those Cheerios! lol

@hearkat Yep. I think you’re spot on, Also, Savannah became aware of Kale before Kale became really aware of her.

They are fun @Katniss…unless the get to crying at the same time. Not so fun because you can only take care of one at a time. But the older kids, especially Brande, are SO much help!

I went to watch Kale today while mom took herself and Savannah to the ER. Mom was having a hard time breathing, and Savannah seemed to be having trouble too.

Kale slept most of the time. He was asleep when I got there. He slept 3 hours. After 3 hours I went to check on him. I kind of peeked around the corner. He was awake, lying on his tummy, just looking at the bars of his crib and touching them. I stepped into view…I swear, I thought he was going to pass out from sheer delight when he saw me! He got so excited that he fell over and was grinning sooooo big! It was like, “It’s you AGAIN!!! YAAAAYYYYY!!! WHOO! WOWWWWW!” It was like a 40K party on Fluther, only more better. :) If he could have, he would have JUMPED out of that crib into my arms! And there was spit everywhere to prove how happy he was!

Not too many things better than that in this world. :)

Those are two of the happiest babies I have ever seen in my life. And Corrie does it all by her self.

Albert Einstein was considered retarded in grade school and flunked math.

I know.