Advice needed advanced learning?

Hi There,
1st post and new to the site so firstly Hello!

I am a first time parent to a marvelous boy called William who is 18 months old.
Something happened yesterday that quite literally amazed me and i'm not sure if its normal or perhaps i've identified some advanced learning for his age.

He has some puzzles from ELC where you place about 10 shapes into their corresponding slots and has only played with the puzzle at any length a handful of occasions. Yesterday i got the puzzles in question out to play with and sat with him whilst he played with them.
To my amazement he started placing the puzzle shapes into the correct slot 1st time everytime with 1 or 2 exceptions, he continued to do this about 3 times before it struck me i should try and mix things up a little! So what i did was i took all the shapes out distracted his attention away from the puzzle momentarily whilst i turned the puzzle board upside down(i know how sneaky of me!)
He then set about task in trying to put the shapes in except he tried to put the shape that usually goes in the top left corner in (which due to the puzzle being upside down was now Bottom right corner) without succesfully doing so he then tried the shape that normally goes into the top right corner, which of course was now Bottom Left.
This little test if you like immediately struck me that he was using memory to place the shapes in, what he did next absolutley blew me away, he took hold of the puzzle board put it round the right way (absolutely no prompting by me i might add) and the proceeded to place the shapes in their correct place along with a high 5 on completion!

Do you think this is along the lines of photgraphic memory or some advanced learning? To me all of this seems quite advanced at 18 months old but being 1st time parent i'm unsure, i guess i should also add he loves to read books and it's been comented on his speech is very good for his age.

I was wondering what other toys i could buy him that will help promote this learning development so any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you and appologies for the long post i hope it makes sense!

Sounds like you have a pretty smart cookie there! My daughter is going on 6 now so I don't know what games and toys to recommend for your son but you'll probably get some good suggestions here. When she was his age she did really well with the puzzles and shapes games as well and is still an amazing little puzzle maker. I would look on line maybe for education toy sites?

Good luck, sounds like he's on a great track!!

All children have photographic memories, I wish I had one, it would make things loads easier!

you could have a bright child on your hands, my daughter was doing 6 peice jigsaws at 18 months and could pedal a bike and dress herself and potty trained round about the same time.

Shes a bright girl, little slow at maths sometimes but i can let her off that, shes 11 now and in all the top streams at the high school.

I would continue to teach your son and encourage him to work well andim sure that he will peak at school.

Well done on being such a devoted father