Fast learners, misdescription and underestimation

I was struck recently by a phenomenon which gifted children are likely to encounter: their misdescription by others.

Now, what do I mean by this? Well, often gifted children are faster learners than other people. The more gifted the child, the faster they can learn. This leads to a very interesting phenomenon: no-one will make a correct description of the child, unless they have met them very recently.

I will explain. You see, if a child is growing, learning and changing very fast and continues to do so, then anyone who meets them is meeting them at a particular point of development. When they are later asked to describe the child, they will describe as they were on that day. Yet, if weeks or months have passed since then, the description will be out of date. For the most gifted of children, this disparity could be great indeed.

I will give an example. Recently, in an interview, a Professor said of Ainan: "I have no doubt he is a Chemistry prodigy". He then went on to say things which he knew, for sure, Ainan understood.

I was immediately struck by how much Ainan had changed in his level, since this Professor had interviewed him, 9 months before. He was talking about a different child. The child he talked about was basically at High School graduation level but the child he had since become is at College Graduation level in the American system (that is at a Major in Chemistry level, Bachelor's). Big difference.

(Note that a British style Undergraduate degree covers American style Graduate material - sometimes even with a research component, depending on course.)

Yet, anyone reading that could misperceive Ainan.

This will happen with any of the most gifted children - but it will still happen, to a degree to those of more moderate gift.

In speaking of gifted children, therefore, we must never forget to ask ourselves: how much has that child grown since I last spoke to him/her in detail? The answer could be "far more than you could imagine."

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and eleven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and four months, and Tiarnan, twenty-one months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)