Nagc Test

Giftedness:

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Introduction
 Stable versus unstable personal traits
 e.g. gender versus hair color
 Which is giftedness?
 Often viewed as a childhood attribute
 This reflected by a recent web search
 What are the results of googling … ?

Google results
 “gifted children” →1,440,000 hits
 versus post-childhood:
 “gifted adolescents” → 39,600 hits
 “gifted teenagers” → 1,670 hits
 “gifted adults” → 24,700 hits
 “gifted elderly” → 56 hits
 “gifted senior citizens” → 8 hits

Google results
 and versus pre-childhood:
 “gifted babies” → 6,660 hits
 “gifted infants” → 540 hits
 “gifted zygotes” → 1 hit
 the latter some Jon Stewart quip!

Argument
 Giftedness can be a life-long trait
 This developmental continuity is
especially conspicuous when we look at
the highest levels of giftedness
 e.g., top 1% rather than top 10%

PERFORMANCE Top 1%

Superlative
Performance
Threshold

Top 10%

AGE

From Conception to
Reputation
 Genetic conception
 Gestation
 Infancy
 Childhood
 Adolescence
 Adulthood
 Death
 Posthumous reputation

Genetic conception
 It all begins with the “gifted zygote”
 Galton’s 1869 Hereditary Genius
 Modern behavioral genetics:
Giftedness is most likely
 multi-polygenic (many polygenic traits)
 emergenic (multiplicative/configurational)
 epigenetic (unfolds over time)
 In short, a complex, dynamic process

Gestation
 Intrauterine environment
 e.g., Geschwind’s theory
 elevated testosterone after 20th week
 right > left posterior hemisphere growth
 giftedness/savantism
 mathematical ability
 artistic/spatial ability
 musical ability
 Simon Baron-Cohen: “extreme male brain”

Infancy
 The Developmental “Dark Ages”
 Early developmental signposts not
always indicative of later giftedness
 and may even be counter-indicative (e.g.,
delayed speech)
 So when do the Dark Ages end?
 What’s the earliest age at which the
gift begins to manifest itself?

Fagan Test of Infant
Intelligence
 Attention to novelty at 6-12 months predicts
 adult IQ
 academic achievement
 but this assessment concerns general
intelligence (Spearman’s g)
 What about more domain-specific
indicators?

Cox (1926) 301 Geniuses
 Jeremy Bentham: English
jurist and utilitarian
philosopher (early IQ 180)
 Learned alphabet before talking
 At 3 began classical education
when father buys a Latin
grammar; same age read
Rapin’s History of England

Feldman/Goldsmith
(1986/2000) 6 prodigies
 a child who read music before he was four,
 two children who played winning chess
before they entered school,
 another who studied abstract algebra in
grade school,
 a youngster who produced typed scripts of
original stories and plays before his fifth
birthday, and
 a child who read, wrote, began learning
foreign languages, and composed short
musical pieces before he was out of diapers.

Winner (1996): Gifted Children
 Michael Kearney
 speak at 4 months;
 read at 8 months;
 algebra on own at age 3
 KyLee Hench
 fascinated with letters & numbers at 1.5
 mental arithmetic at 2
 playing math computer games by 3

SMPY (Julian Stanley et al.)
 Terry Tao: Fields Medal recipient
 taught himself to read before 2;
 using portable typewriter before 2.5;
 solved math problems typical of 8-year
olds by 3.

Childhood
 Dark Ages rarely end before ages 2-3,
 and more commonly end at the age of
a late preschooler or kindergartner
 even Mozart didn’t begin composing
until 5 (with father’s help)
 and J. S. Mill didn’t write his first book
(a history of Rome) until 6.5 (juvenilia)

Childhood
 During this age period various
environmental factors kick in
 including
 Birth order (not prenatal!)
 Traumatic, enriching, and diversifying events
 Domain-specific role models and mentors, and
 Expertise acquisition (10-year rule)
 that affect the type and degree of giftedness
 The “gift” as a nature-nurture collaboration

Adolescence
 Although the previously mentioned
factors continue to nurture growth,
 the gifted youth can also be led astray
from the path of optimal development:
 Peer groups become especially critical
during this phase
 e.g., Csikszentmihalyi et al.’s (1993)
Talented teenagers

Adulthood
 The Great Transformation from
 Input to Output
 Potential to Actual Achievement
 Giftedness to Genius

Adulthood
 Accelerated career onset
 Abbreviated expertise acquisition (< 10 years)
 Early achievement (viz. 1st “hit” in 20s)
 Exceptional productivity or output (e.g.,
Napoleon, Edison, Picasso, Mozart)
 High impact (e.g., disciples, honors)
 Long, productive career
 Early- + late-bloomers << long-bloomers
 Hence, last testaments, old-age style shifts,
swan-songs

Examples
 Cervantes:
 Don Quixote,
 Part II,
 age 68,
 died age 69

Examples
 Galileo:
 Two New Sciences,
 age 74,
 died age 78

Examples
 Goethe:
 Faust, Part II,
 age 83,
 died age 83

Examples
 Verdi:
 Falstaff,
 age 85,
 died age 88

Death
 Life expectancy as contingent on
achievement domain
 Examples:
 Mathematicians versus Biologists
 Poets versus Novelists
 Military versus Political Leaders
 Revolutionary versus Status Quo
Politicians
 Precocity negative impact on longevity

Genius Age 1st Age at
masterwork death
Arriaga 18 20
(music)
Galois 20 20
(math)
Chatterton 16 17
(poetry)

Posthumous reputation
 Eventual eminence is a direct function
of lifetime achievement,
 which is most often defined by the
quality and quantity of output or impact
 As a result, the highest degrees of
eminence are consistent across space
and stable through time

Hence …
 Giftedness can become
 the gift that keeps on giving!
 even longer lasting than …

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