For many centuries they etched themselves into our history and been glorified for their feats. Many would see them as being gifted or the product of overbearing, demanding parents. These young individuals of brilliant minds are psychologically titled: “Child Prodigy.” What is a child prodigy? By definition, a child prodigy is defined as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain to the level of an adult expert performer. Child prodigies can be gifted and highly skilled in different abilities such as being a pianist, an artist, or an early mathematician. I have always had an interest in child prodigies and wondered what makes them able to acquire such high intelligence. Altogether, I will discover the community of these talented children and what shapes a child prodigy. Child prodigies have existed throughout time. Wolfgang Mozart, Pablo Picasso, and Enrico Fermi are just a few examples of influential figures who have been honorably mentioned in history. In the modern world today, most …show more content…
Similarly Tanishq Abraham and Aelita Andre have both displayed gifted characteristics at an early age of their childhood which is what brought them to become child prodigies. Most would theorize child prodigies to become the way they are from intense studying or being biologically gifted. It is a debatable topic whether they are born or made. According to Popular Science, Joanne Ruthsatz, a psychologist at Ohio State University, has studied child prodigies to learn more of what shapes and creates how they are. According to her research she has found exceptional memory, attention to detail, and elevated general intelligence to be the three features of child prodigies. An exceptional working memory meaning child prodigies are able to store and process information over a short period of time. Also an elevated general intelligence meaning the child prodigies Ruthsatz studied had a range of different IQs from 100 to
As both types occur in children’s development, Piagetian and information-processing theories complement each other, with some researchers attempting to combine the two in an effort to develop stronger cognitive-developmental theories. “Scientific reasoning begins in infancy, babies see how objects move and behave, gather information, build patterns of expectations about the world around them and form general categories” (Gopnik, Meltzoff & Kuhl, 1999). Under the Bayley Scale of Infant Intelligence, based on (Bayley, 1993), he had a good report as well as the assessment done by the early childhood specialist at his preschool. The examiner commented that Kieran was able to concentrate very well during all of the testing.
Although another reason, apart from how expensive it is, is the fact that the public industries want a certain manner of learning. The child could be music talented or physically talented but they are manipulated to learn from a book rather than expressing their own ways much. This is the case of the son of the writer, Robert Lake, from “An Indian Father’s Plea”. In which the cultural difference in both the native tribe and the society that is America has named the child, Wind-Wolf, a “slow learner”. With such case, the father argues that the child “has already been through quite an education compared with his peers in Western society.” Although the standards that we as a society have for certain age groups have increased and do not take into consideration the fact that there are many ways to be intelligent rather than knowing your ABC’S and what the Pythagorean Theorem is. These individual guidelines, such as Standardized test, help the teachers see where the student is academically, yet it is not an appropriate to categorize a child by the way they performed based on the test. Like the famous scientist, Albert Einstein once said: “everybody is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole
The four stages of intellectual growth play a vast role in determining the cognitive ability in a young child. “The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge, but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover, to create men who are capable of doing new things (McLeod, 2012).” Every piece of technology that’s used today was not thought of by the smartest person in the world, it was thought up of by someone who was simply had the imagination and creativity in their head to discover it. This Jean Piaget quote explains just what intellectual growth is -- it’s about opening up ideas to create, not becoming the smartest. Jean Piaget was the creator of the four stages of intellectual growth model and his work created
How human children’s intelligence develops as they go through their adolescent stages in their early life has been a wonder to many researches and theorists. Jean Piaget is a stage theorists which means that he believes that there are a series of four main qualitatively different periods (or stages) that children go through in a certain and stable order and that any information or experiences that they gain in one stage is going to stay with them and prepare them for their next one. Piaget believes that children are active participants in their own development from stage to stage and that they construct their own mental structures through their interactions with their environments that begin just
Late Childhood (Ages 9-11), Ingenuity: Older children have acquired a wide range of social and technical skills which enable them to come up with excellent strategies and inventive solutions to deal with the increasing pressures which society leaves on them. This principle of inventiveness lives on in that part of us that ever seeks new ways to solve practical problems and cope with everyday
Some people work hard their whole life to achieve success and others just seem to be born talented in a certain field that they prevail in. One of the ways an individual can attempt to become successful is by working diligently in school to obtain a proper education. Access to advanced education is key if you would want to become very intelligent and furthermore the so called “gifted programs” in these advanced education systems are supposed to make you even smarter.People have wondered if going through gifted programs would make you more successful in your adult life.There was a man named Richard Terman, who wanted to take a group of kids in these gifted programs, his “Termites”, and track how successful they were later in life. He was hoping to find that the kids that were in advanced classes would in fact become very successful adults and he was right. When his Termites were adults many of them became experts in different fields. Terman measured the success of the chosen people by looking at awards they have achieved and all of the writings that they have published and the amount of these achievements was fairly
Many people have different beliefs about how a child develops. Some people believe that children are born to be able to do the things they do however others could argue that children develop different due to the different opportunities they are given.
The key difference between Walter Isaacson’s, author of “The Genius of Jobs”, and Carol Dweck’s, author of “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids”, perspective of intelligence lies in their thought of inherent ability; Isaacson believes that intelligence is a natural gift that can be expanded upon, but Dweck would respond by agreeing to a degree but believing that the beauty of intelligence lies in that expansion.
Whether giftedness is a product of nature or created through nurture is a controversial discussion. However, Winner (2000), Colangelo & Davis (2003), Mrazik & Dombrowski (2010) all agree the answer lies somewhere in the middle. The idea of giftedness is often evaluated under the premise of expertness or mastery. Do all gifted children become masters or experts of their gifted area? Can people become gifted through extensive training (which is required for expertness)? Winner states that families cannot make a child become gifted, however, certain parenting styles that combine nurturance and stimulation can help maintain and nurture the gift. Winner reviewed many studies on hard work, perseverance, and practice, none of which can explain the origins of giftedness, but are very necessary for high achievement. Colangelo and Davis propose that high intelligence alone will not provide high levels of achievement, but may be necessary for achievement.
A large part of Mozart’s fame can be attributed to his ingenuity, which encompasses his compositional style as well as his image as a child genius. Ingenuity refers to the quality of being clever, original, and inventive. Mozart was widely known for being a child music prodigy who began composing works at the age of five. His works are appreciated by many even today. However, Mozart may not have been as original, or as much of a genius, as many believe.
“The Drama of the Gifted Child” by Alice Miller is a book that every child psychologist should want to read in order to understand children at a young age. This book teaches the readers that a gifted child who is intelligent, sensitive and is emotionally aware can be accustomed to their parent’s expectations. Therefore they will do whatever it takes to fulfill her parent’s expectations, while ignoring their own feelings and needs. While trying to be the perfect child, they lose their true self and locks away their feelings. When the child becomes older, they still try to please their parents but are constantly looking to others for approval. If an adult cannot face the truth of his or her past as a child, then they are not going to
A parent would easily prefer that their children not develop a fixed mindset about their capabilities because that would prevent them from responding well to obstacles. By focusing on a child’s effort, parents can encourage the development of a growth mindset. Children would benefit from understanding that their hard work can pay off when life starts getting difficult. If a child is thriving, however, it is imperative not to provide them with too much admiration for their efforts otherwise they may consider themselves having low ability. This can be equated to a soccer player who is congratulated for having the best effort on the team rather than being the team’s most valuable player. In order to foster growth mindsets, parents must convey to their children that what they accomplished was done through hard work and perseverance. Looking back at the Sally Forth comic example, it was not the best idea for Sally to tell her daughter what she did. As discussed before, it would have been better for Sally to inform her daughter that her abilities are malleable and will grow with hard work, instead of suggesting that her abilities were fixed and she had them even if she “were a full-blown idiot” (Marciuliano & Keefe,
One of the most controversial things about gifted and talented education is the criterion educators use to identify the gifted and talented. In the past, a student’s intelligence, based on an I.Q. score, was considered the best way to determine whether or not they qualified as gifted. As a result of using this method of identification, many gifted and talented students are not discovered nor are they placed in the appropriate programs to develop their abilities. Talents in the arts or an excellent ability to write are not measured on an I.Q. test but are abilities that may certainly qualify a student as gifted or talented.
The development of children differs from individual to individual, depending on their unique temperament, leaning style, family, and upbringing. Research theorists such as Jean Piaget and Erick Erickson have endeavored to organize child development into universal, predictable sequences of growth that typically occurs in most children. In this paper I will be discussing my life story from infancy to adolescence and intergrading the theorists, domains, models that I have learned in child development classes.
The term “gifted” can mean many things. Up until recently it was the word used to describe people with profoundly high intelligence. Now, adding the words “creative” and “talented”, the category of giftedness has been extended to include not only exceptionally intelligent people, but also people with extraordinary ability in other areas, not just with IQ tests (Drew, Egan, & Hardman, 2002).