Note to parents of non-prodigies (so, most of you): No amount of flash cards, professional training, or baby Einstein DVD’s can make your kid a prodigy if the stuff isn’t there, so don’t try. Winner describes it as “a rage to master.” That behavior, along with the talent, is critical to identifying prodigies. Most of them are only interested in that domain,” says Ruthsatz. “They’re unusual in their devotion to their particular domain. But while there is at least a little wiggle room on where “really, really, really gifted” ends and “prodigy” begins, one thing all prodigies share is a total focus on the area in which they excel. Others extend that timeline to adolescence. Signs of prodigy-hood can be seen as young as 2 or 3-years-old.Ĭlinically, some say a true prodigy is someone who achieves professional mastery of a skill by age 10. Some might include chess, or even sports. “These are kids who are years ahead of their peers.” Typically, child prodigies emerge in math, language, art, and music. They tend to be very advanced in one area, usually not all areas,” Dr. “A prodigy is somebody who is on the extreme end of giftedness. But for those holding out hope - or wondering what to do with a kid drawing like Rembrandt in elementary school art class - here’s how to identify and nurture a child prodigy. So, they know what they’re talking about. Ruthsatz is at the forefront of research into the nexus of exceptional childhood behavior and autism. Winner runs a Harvard lab focused on gifted children and Dr. Winner and Ruthsatz are two of the world’s leading experts on prodigies (prodigy-ologists?) Dr. Joanne Ruthsatz of Ohio State University.ĭrs. “One in 5 million children might be a prodigy, says Dr. Ellen Winner, professor of psychology at Boston College. And, if you have to ask if your kid is a prodigy, they aren’t. These are examples of genuine child prodigies, the kind making the 6 o’clock news or attending medical school before puberty. Without you, there’s no way little Johnny could repeat key punchlines from Ghostbusters or identify the starting point guard on your preferred squad of ballers.īut while those things undoubtedly matter - seriously, people, Ghostbusters - there’s a difference between special and “special.” By age 8, Mozart composed his first symphony and mathemagenius Terence Tao scored a 760 on the math portion of the SAT. 4.Of course your precious sunflower is special, because you are an excellent parent. Her image now appears on the 200-peso bill in Mexico. She continued her studies, however, and eventually established herself as one of the 17th century’s most popular authors of drama, poetry and prose. The former child prodigy entered a convent at age 20 and spent the rest of her life as a cloistered nun. When she was 17, she was famously tested by a panel of 40 university professors, all of whom were shocked by her deep knowledge of philosophy, mathematics and history. Juana’s reputation for genius later won her a place as a lady-in-waiting at the viceroy’s court in Mexico City. By her adolescence, she had also studied Greek logic and learned an Aztec language called Nahuatl. Despite being denied a formal education because of her gender, she began writing religious poetry at age 8 and later taught herself Latin, supposedly mastering it in just 20 lessons. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruzīorn in Mexico in 1651, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz learned to read as a toddler and quickly blazed through all the books in her grandfather’s library. He later conducted groundbreaking experiments in neutron bombardment and nuclear chain reactions before becoming one of the lead physicists on the Manhattan Project-the secret research program that developed the atomic bomb. Fermi achieved his post-secondary degree from the school several years early at the age of just 21. He then applied to the University of Pisa in 1918, wowing the admissions panel with a doctoral-level essay that solved the partial differential equation of a vibrating rod. After his brother died unexpectedly in 1915, 13-year-old Enrico dealt with his grief by burying himself in books on trigonometry, physics and theoretical mechanics. The Italy native showed signs of having a photographic memory as a boy, and by age 10 he was spending his free time mulling over geometric proofs and building electric motors. Before his work on radioactivity won him the Nobel Prize and helped usher in the nuclear age, Enrico Fermi was considered a mathematics and physics prodigy.
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