Prodigy PDF

# How Child Prodigies Come to Be - How a child prodigy comes by their preternatural ability is not something that has made much sense to scientists. Only recently has science begun to probe the cultural and biological roots of wunderkinder. - New research is showing what scientists have long suspec...

# How Child Prodigies Come to Be - How a child prodigy comes by their preternatural ability is not something that has made much sense to scientists. Only recently has science begun to probe the cultural and biological roots of wunderkinder. - New research is showing what scientists have long suspected: that the brains of very smart children appear to function in startlingly different ways from those of average kids. - But the question on every parent's mind remains: Are prodigies born, or can prodigies be made? Is giftedness an accident of genetics, or can it be forged through environment by parents, schools, and mentors? - This much is clear: ethnicity and geography are irrelevant. Prodigies can materialize anywhere, and Asia produces more than its share of the superprecocious. - In the past, poverty, lack of education, and absence of opportunities meant their abilities may have gone undiscovered or undeveloped, but bigger incomes and the rise of an ambitious middle class have produced a boom in accomplished youngsters. - A 1997 survey of 32 outstanding physics and chemistry students that was conducted by the National Taiwan Normal University found more than three-quarters of them were the eldest child in small, dual-income households - families with relatively high socioeconomic status. - Strictly speaking, however, most of the smart kids in any given home or classroom are not prodigies, no matter how diligent or talented they may be. - The standard definition of a prodigy is a child who, by age 10, displays a mastery of a field usually undertaken only by adults. - "I always say to parents, 'If you have to ask whether your child is a prodigy, then your child isn't one," says Ellen Winner, a psychologist in Boston and author of *Gifted Children: Myths and Realities.* - Prodigies are, by this definition, exotic creatures whose standout accomplishments are obvious. - Abigail Sin who, at the age of 10, is Singapore's most celebrated young pianist, started reading at the age of 2, and for the past three years has been ranked among the top 1% in the city-state in an international math competition sponsored by Australia's University of New South Wales. - She's smart, but it was only through her music that she qualified as a bona fide prodigy. - The youngest Singaporean ever to obtain the coveted Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music diploma in piano performance, Sin demonstrates one of the hallmark qualities of the breed: a single-minded drive to excel. Winner calls it a "rage to learn," which in Sin's case was manifest in her almost unstoppable urge to master the keyboard since she took her first lesson at the age of 5. - "A lot of kids don't like to sit at the piano for hours," says her tutor Benjamin Loh. "Abigail is different," practicing 25 hours on average a week. "She loves to play, and she learns extraordinarily fast." - Her intensity is all the more obvious when she is compared with her twin brother, Josiah, who, like his sister, is good with numbers but doesn't share Abigail's passion for music. "She always practices the same stuff over and over again," he complains. - Where does the drive come from? Researchers are just beginning to understand that there are differences in the functioning of the brain's neural circuitry that appear to differentiate prodigies from their ordinary peers. - Neuroscientists have learned more about human gray matter in the past 10 years than in all of previous medical history combined, partly due to the advent of sophisticated technology such as a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, which measures blood flow to different segments of the brain, revealing which parts "light up during various mental activities. - The only fMRI scanner in the Southern Hemisphere can be found in Melbourne, where American psychologist Michael O'Boyle has been scanning the brains of young people gifted in mathematics. - He's making some startling discoveries. O'Boyle found that, compared with average kids, children with an aptitude for numbers show six to seven times more metabolic activity in the right side of their brains, an area known to mediate pattern recognition and spatial awareness key abilities for math and music. - Scans also showed heightened activity in the frontal lobes, believed to play a crucial "*executive*" role in coordinating thought and improving concentration. - This region of the brain is virtually inactive in average children when doing the same tasks. - Viewed with fMRI, It's like the difference between stoplight and Christmas tree," says O'Boyle, the director of the University of Melbourne's Morgan Center, which researches the development of children who have high intellectual potential. "Not only do math-gifted kids have higher right-side processing power, but this power is also fine-tuned by frontal areas that enhance concentration. These kids are really locked on." - O'Boyle believes prodigies can also switch very efficiently between the brain's left and right hemispheres, utilizing other mental resources and perhaps even shutting down areas that produce random distractions. - In short, while their brains aren't physically different from ordinary children's, prodigies seem to be able to focus better to muster the mental resources necessary to solve problems and learn. - "For the longest time, these kids' brains were considered the same as everyone else's; they just did twice as much, twice as fast," says O'Boyle. - "It turns out those quantitative explanations don't fit. They're doing something qualitatively different." - But are prodigies born different, gifted by genetic accident to be mentally more efficient? Or is the management of mental resources something that can be developed? - Scientists aren't sure. Studies have shown that raw intelligence as measured through IQ tests is highly (though not completely) inheritable. - But the connection between high intelligence and prodigious behavior is far from absolute. - With only sketchy evidence to rely on, researchers and other experts continue to debate the age-old "nature vs. nurture" question. - "There is no inborn talent for music ability," Shinichi Suzuki, creator of the Suzuki Method of training young musicians, once declared. - Even those who believe certain talents are innate agree that a child's upbringing has a big impact on whether a gift is developed or squashed. - "Prodigies are half born, half made and mostly discovered at an early age," says Wu Wu-tien, dean of the College of Education at the National Taiwan Normal University. - The role adopted by parents is vital. - According to psychologist Winner's research, the parents of gifted kids provide stimulating environments: their homes are often full of books; they read to their children at an early age; they take them on trips to museums and concerts. - They do not talk down to their children, and they allow them a high degree of independence. - And if their child shows talent, they will pull out all the stops to make sure it is encouraged. - Prodigies should not put away childish things simply because they perform as adults, say experts. "Children still need time to be children," says McCann of Flinders University. - Violinist Yeou-Cheng Ma—the lesser-known older sister of cellist Yo-Yo once poignantly remarked on her eight-hour-a-day practice sessions, "I traded my childhood for my good left hand." - Even the devoted Singaporean pianist Sin sometimes wants a break from her beloved instrument. "Most of the time I enjoy practicing," she says, "but sometimes I only want to play with Jacky." Jacky is her 18-month-old Yorkshire terrier.