Prodigies certainly exist, but they are notably more common in some domains than others. Chess, musical performance, and pure mathematics are full of prodigies because they draw on relatively delimited knowledge and skills. The dazzling calendar calculation of the childhood savant is likely not a polygenic trait.
Achievements that require complex abilities like creativity or leadership, which comprise many different traits and thus the alignment of many different genes, are years in the making. As Simonton points out, there is only one way of becoming an early bloomer, but there are an infinite number of ways of being a late bloomer. The more complex a trait, the more ways a person can become a late bloomer for that trait.
Although the child prodigy is the one who has the right genes working together early, there is no guarantee that the prodigy will remain one. Other traits can emerge later that may make it difficult for the prodigy to continue his or her success. An initial gift may completely disappear. Once set loose in the world, many child prodigies can no longer display their talents because they don't know how to sell themselves or deal with the rejection they never experienced in grade school.
Indeed, what enables children to be labeled gifted may turn out to be the limiting factor in their lives. Joshua Waitzkin, once a child chess whiz, is captivated by the learning process. In his 20s, he began the study of Tai Chi and, despite his late athletic start, has become an international champion. Waitzkin sees huge disadvantages to being labeled a child prodigy. "If you buy into the label," he says, "the greatest danger, in the language of psychologist Carol Dweck, is that we internalize an entity theory of intelligence. The moment we believe success is determined by an ingrained level of ability, as opposed to resilience and hard work, we will be brittle in the face of adversity. If you tell a kid that she's a winner, which a lot of parents do, then she believes that her winning is because of something ingrained in her. If she wins because she is a winner, then losing makes her a loser."
The fact that genes come online at different times opens the possibility for the tortoise to overtake the hare. Researchers often refer to the "10-year rule," according to which it takes 10 years to master a field. But as Simonton points out, "the rule is an average with variation, not a fixed threshold." What may take the average person 15 years to master may take later bloomers only five once their genes sync up; even though they started later, progress can be rapid and make up for lost time.
Making judgments about a young person's potential at any one moment overlooks the fact that time is needed for complexes of genes to get in tune. And so we write people off. For others, we write the check too soon.
Young brains may be faster at memorizing Backstreet Boys lyrics, but older brains have some clever tricks up their neuronal sleeve that put all the years of ripening to good use. In the brain, information gets passed through wires called axons. Helping the wires deliver the information is a fatty coating called the myelin sheath. Research by neurologist George Bartzokis and his colleagues at UCLA suggests that as we develop, we lay down more of these sheaths, transforming the brain into a high-speed, wide-bandwidth Internet-like system.
Myelin speeds the transmission of information, but knowledge itself, and the proliferation of nerve connections and circuits by which we access it, depend on the acquisition of experience. And that takes time. "We become wise by being able to access information differently with a wider perspective," says Bartzokis.
The increased myelination helps ensure that a lifetime of experiences do not go to waste. Humans don't even reach their peak myelin volume until their 50s. Even then, the brain continues to repair myelin until the very end of our lives. Fields that draw on many different brain circuits benefit greatly from the expanding processing capacity. "The more wide-ranging the field, the greater the contribution of late bloomers," says Bartzokis.
Take the Olympics. World record breakers tend to make their mark at an early age, drawing on only a few brain circuits—motor skills, determination, and the attention circuits required to follow a coach's directions. A coach, on the other hand, requires "myriad other circuits to be a great coach," notes Bartzokis, such as "the circuits needed to design the training that will work with a particular athlete. I know very few great coaches who are really young, even though I know a lot of young people that love a sport beyond words."
Little wonder that the United States requires a minimum age to be President. To manage a country requires all the processing capacity the brain can muster.
While the developing brain contributes to the time course of accomplishment, it's only one factor. To fully bloom at any time, one must also have a direction.
Finding Purpose
"I made a decision that I wanted to be world class at something at a very young age; I just had to find that one thing that made me realize this is my arena, this is where I want to play," says Chris Gardner, founder and CEO of the stock brokerage Gardner Rich & Co.
After a childhood of brutal abuse and an early adulthood as a single parent—homeless and destitute— Gardner eventually found that arena. Seeing a red Ferrari pull into a parking lot, he approached the driver and asked him, "What do you do and how do you do it?" The answer, investment banking, turned out to be a perfect match for the math and people skills Gardner already had.
Tags:
8 years,
age,
camel,
ck,
college graduate,
development,
disease mongering,
ears,
gifted education,
human intelligence,
hump,
intelligence,
IQ,
IQ test,
iqs,
laborer,
learning difficulties,
librarians,
local library,
reflection,
school psychologist,
smart kids,
Susan Pinker,
talent,
The Sexual Paradox
