Source Code: Tiarnan's review.

Yesterday, we took the kids to see Source Code, the film by Duncan Jones, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. It was very interesting to watch the boys’ reactions to this somewhat unconventional film. In particular it was Tiarnan’s response that intrigued me most.

Those who haven’t seen the film should note that it has a cyclic, repetitive structure for much of it. I won’t give away any details by telling you why...just note that this is so.

Tiarnan, five, was silent at first watching the film, but gradually a degree of puzzlement grew in him. He started to behave oddly. At one point, he even seemed to go to sleep, but then, after some minutes, opened his eyes, too quickly and too alertly, to have really been asleep at all.

He turned to his mother, leaning into her ear.

“Mummy, what is it with this film? When I go to sleep, then wake up, it is the same!”
She smiled to hear his words, but had no explanation – and it was not the place to give it. She urged him back to the screen.

He continued to watch the film, but his mind seemed to be contemplating more than just the plot. He seemed to be thinking very deeply indeed. He reached out to his popcorn and carefully ate it all up, bit by bit. He studied the popcorn carefully, as if satisfying himself that it was genuinely eaten. Then he looked up at the screen again...and looked somewhat exasperated.

He leaned into his mummy again.

“Mummy: when I finish my popcorn, the movie is STILL the same!”

She gave him a hug. Explanations could wait until she was out of the cinema.

At the end, she asked him: “Did you enjoy the film?”

She did not expect a positive answer, given his comments.

“Yes.” He nodded, seriously, for such a small boy. “I did, by the end.”

Now, to my understanding, Tiarnan’s response to the film was very interesting and very complex, indeed. When he saw that the film was repeating, Tiarnan, who had never seen a film do this before, was led to question his own understanding of reality. He was unsure whether the film was genuinely repeating, or whether there was something wrong with his own experience of reality. His question seemed to be: was the film repeating, or was Tiarnan’s world repeating?

Tiarnan, however, had a solution to this dilemma of whether it was himself or the film, at fault. He tried to create parallel changes in his world, of which he could be certain, and then tested them against the film, to see if it also exhibited changes. Thus, he pretended to sleep, knowing he had “slept” and knowing, therefore, that time had passed, in a different way, leading to the expectation that the film would change. Yet, it hadn’t. This only increased his puzzlement more. Thus, he conceived of another reality test – a more tangible one. He decided to eat all his popcorn and make an irreversible tangible change in the world of which he could be sure. Sure enough, all the popcorn vanished – but still the film was basically the same. This, however, reassured him that the film was at fault and not his own experience of reality.

Tiarnan’s thinking, to my mind, was very complex in this situation. He genuinely seemed to be considering the two alternatives: that it was the film, or his lived reality that were at fault. Then he devised tests to distinguish which pertained. It was a very subtle piece of thinking for a five year old. It was also one that showed a certain open-mindedness and maturity: open-minded, to consider that he might be at fault, mature to invent incontrovertible tests to distinguish the possibilities.
For me, Tiarnan’s reaction to the film was the best part about it. I did enjoy the film, but I got far more out of seeing what he made of it. Just watching my children explore and understand the world gives me rewards I could not have imagined existed, before I became a father.

Thank you, Tiarnan, for showing me what you thought of the world, yesterday, and of what was possible for it.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks. You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Of memory power and interest.

There are some people who think that the gift of a child like Ainan consists of nothing more than "memory power" and "interest". They think that to be a prodigious child and achieve at an adult level before the primary years are over, that nothing more is needed than a good memory and a liking for a subject. Clearly, such people are unfamiliar with the requirements of the subject Ainan is dealing with.

To be a chemist, one needs to be competent in spatial skills (the spatial arrangement of molecules is important); verbal skills (lots of complicated words and naming systems); mathematical skills (there are numerical problems to solve); memory skills (yes, there is a lot to know); logical skills (for the problem solving, some types of problem can be quite tricky); conceptual skills (understanding the physical concepts involved in Chemistry). Now, to be competent in Chemistry, a child needs to be good at ALL those areas. Memory, note, is just one of those areas. Of course, an interest in Chemistry is necessary too...but without a good level of native skill in all the areas, the child will not succeed in Chemistry, no matter how "interested" they are, or how good their "memory power" is.

I wonder, sometimes, at the lack of reasoning powers of some people that I have encountered on the internet. They think that the sum total of gifts required to be a young scientist is a good memory and an interest in science. I can tell you now that those two attributes alone will not get anyone very far at all in science. Primarily, science is not about memory, but about REASONING. Without highly developed powers of reason, no child, or adult, can expect to do well in science. Of all possible disciplines, the scientific ones tax reason above all other attributes. It is possible to be a savant, and know everything about a science - but such a person would most probably fail any and all exams that they are asked to do, because savants usually lack the ability to apply their knowledge with reason. Thus, knowledge alone (that is, memory alone) is not the answer. Memory alone, in science, is, in fact, nothing at all. It is basically a textbook - for a book is pure memory - but when is the last time a book passed an exam?

The other thing I observe in some of the comments I receive is that people are no longer familiar with the O level exam. It used to be taken by the upper 20% of students in the UK and all around the world. About twenty years ago, the UK dropped it, in favour of a much easier exam - the GCSE. Now, Ainan took his O level Chemistry when other children were still learning to read. This is not the product of "memory power" and "interest"...for those two characteristics do not satisfy the demands of the O level. Only a comparatively few of the marks go to knowledge alone, most of them go to what would be categorized as REASON. Almost all the children who now take GCSE would fare very badly in O level. Most of them would, in fact, fail. This is because it demands both more knowledge and more reasoning power, than the newer exam.

Since April last year, Ainan has been studying tertiary level Chemistry at Singapore Polytechnic. Again, those who characterize this as "memory power" and "interest" are being rather ignorant. Memory and interest will not even allow a student to grasp what is going on in the classroom. There is a good deal of reason and insight required just to have the faintest idea of what it is all about. Knowledge alone, will not allow anyone to cope with the demands of the situation. This should be obvious to anyone who knows what science is like at a tertiary level.

The real question behind all of this, however, is: why do some people try to characterize the gifts of children like Ainan as nothing more than "memory power" and "interest"?

The answer is probably that they feel threatened by such children and seek to diminish them. They seek to recast them not as gifted and intelligent, but as some variety of automatic recording machine devoid of intelligence. To my mind, that indicates either that the person who so characterizes them is jealous - or that they, themselves, genuinely have no understanding of what the demands of a scientific subject are. So, we are left to conclude that they are either jealous, or ignorant...perhaps both.

It is important to speak out against this characterization of gifted children as little more than pocket tape recorders, because this view of them, diminishes them to such an extent that they are no longer worthy of support or consideration. If such views are allowed sway, then more gifted children will go unsupported and will not receive the resources they need to blossom.

Ainan does have a good memory, but he has a better imagination, a better intuition, a better intelligence, than all the powers of his memory can muster.

Memory is not the answer to genius or giftedness of any kind - but it is a tool that the gifted use. Nikola Tesla was a great genius - but he also had a great visual memory, able to capture things in the finest detail. Mozart was famously able to recall long pieces of music at a single hearing and write them down. Charles Dickens when working as a young journalist, took notes only in his head (if I remember rightly). These three men were all geniuses - and they all had good memories. However, it would be entirely wrong to characterize them as a product of nothing but memory. A good memory was the LEAST of their gifts. It was their REASON and CREATIVITY that made them geniuses. Their memories were just tools to enable the other two faculties to have something to work on.

So, it is with certain gifted children. They have able memories, but these are just tools to allow their other gifts to have something to work with. If you want to know their true gifts - look to their capacities to reason and be creative.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight 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, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Child Prodigy Schools: an educational trend.

In various parts of Asia, Child Prodigy Schools are being established. They answer to a social need - even, one might say, a social demand, in Asian culture, that children "perform". What this means is that, in many parts of Asia, so competitive is the culture, that many parents want for nothing less than that their children be prodigious.

Now, a child prodigy is, in my opinion, based on close observation, an innately gifted child. The prodigious gift is something that emerges from within the genetic inheritance of the child. It is very clearly present, from birth. It is not and never shall be, an environmentally bestowed attribute. So where does that leave "Child Prodigy Schools"? Nowhere, absolutely nowhere.

Yet, that doesn't stop Child Prodigy Schools from being opened around Asia. A recent one is a case in point: The Henan Child Prodigy School in China.

This school makes, as these schools tend to do, an outrageous claim. The owner of the school states that he can bestow a "photographic memory" on the children who attend his school. There are, at present, 150 of these unfortunate souls. I will tell you why they are "unfortunate" soon enough.

After receiving his training program, Zhang Xuexin, the Principal, claims that the children are able to memorize textbooks and traditional poems, and recite them - forwards and backwards. He then goes on to state that they are, therefore, "child prodigies". Well, even accepting his proposition that they end up with "photographic memories" (which I don't), being able to memorize a text and recite it backwards does not imply that one is a prodigy. It implies that either one has a good memory - or that one has spent an awfully long time learning the text. A good memory, on its own, does not confer prodigious status either. A child prodigy must be able to think (if they are in a cerebral domain - as, it is supposed, these are meant to be). Memory is a tool of thinking - but it is not, in itself, evidence of active thinking. A good memory may exist where a good mind does not.

I have seen a video of these children demonstrating their "talent" and it is truly chilling. They sit in rows in a classroom with their eyes closed (although some appear possibly to be slightly open - but more of that later). Before them lays an open textbook which they are unable to see (except perhaps those whose eyes appear to be slightly open). They are reciting what I am led to assume is the contents of the textbook, in a peculiarly inhuman, robotic way. They speak in unison, chanting the words from the book. Their faces have no expression. There is no emotion in them, as they chant. Most look terribly tired (one child is later seen to struggle to keep his eyes open and rubs them).

In the whole video the only person who shows some enthusiasm for life is Zhang Xuexin (as I assume the interviewee to be) who bubbles over with the simple joy of being interviewed on TV (at least, that is how it comes across). No-one else smiles or shows positive emotion in the whole video.

Nowhere do I see evidence of thinking, from the children. Nowhere do I see evidence of personality. Nowhere do I see evidence of happiness. Nowhere, indeed, do I see evidence of prodigiousness. I do, however, see a lot of children listlessly reciting words without any enthusiasm for doing so. I see humans made into robots.

Yep, that is a "Child Prodigy School" alright.

There is something more you should know - something which is more perturbing than the rest of the story put together. A kid playing table tennis missed the ball an awful lot. Huh? You say, what does that mean? Well, it could mean a lot. You see Zhang Xuexin has a lot of unorthodox ideas - I could have used the word "crazy" - but I didn't. One of these ideas is that the children would benefit from "absorbing energy from the Sun". To do this, he insists that they stare directly into the sun, periodically to absorb this "energy". There could be a very good reason why these children seem not to open their eyes much - and why they can't seem to hit a table tennis ball - I think it certain that most of them have damaged eyesight.

That boy rubbing his eyes may not just be tired - he may be wondering why there is a giant black spot in the centre of his vision. These children will go blind, for sure, if they follow Zhang Xuexin's regime, for any length of time - and if they follow it at all, they will have damaged eyesight.

Perhaps Zhang Xuexin's master plan is to open a School for the Prodigious Blind, next. I just can't wait to see what their training program is like.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Quality of memory: incidental knowledge

Ainan is very focussed on his scientific interests yet, surprisingly, he takes note of other things, too, in passing.

William James, the great 19th century American pioneer in the nascent science of Psychology made an interesting observation, on the types of memory people tend to have. He conceived of an understanding of great men: "When both memory and philosophy combine together in one person, then indeed we have the highest sort of intellectual efficiency. Your Walter Scotts, your Leibnitzes, your Gladstones, and your Goethes, all your folio copies of mankind, belong to this type."

Let me explain the background to this remark. This was given in his "Talk to Teachers" on memory. He observed that some people had the ability to recall random information that they were presented with. Their minds were "wax to receive, marble to retain". He further noted that, sometimes, such a great memory was found in a person otherwise ungifted in the "philosophic" department. By this he meant, yes, they have great memories - but they do not also possess high levels of intelligence. Today, we might call such individuals savants or the like - for he seems to be referring to such cases, as we would understand them, today.

However, he further noted that all combinations of types of mind were possible. Sometimes a person was both gifted in memory and in philosophical power of thinking. It is this type that he thinks of as great men - and used the geniuses above as examples of it. He further believed that such a combination was necessary for the highest accomplishment - the greatest of men (women not being afforded much opportunity in his day) tending to exhibit both faculties, to allow the necessary mental efficiency to accomplish their goals.

He clarified his understanding of memory by conceiving of the idea of "desultory memory" - this was the capacity to remember anything and everything without effort (his "wax to receive, marble to retain".) It is difficult for most of us to remember random information - but he noted that some people were adept at this, along with whatever other faculties they possessed.

Incidentally, "desultory" has a fascinating history as a word. It ultimately comes from the Latin, desultorius, the adjectival form of desultur, meaning "hasty, casual, superficial" but applied to mean "a rider in the circus who jumped from one horse to another while they are in gallop,". It therefore captures the ability of some people to be fluid in memory, too - to jump from one thing, to another, effortlessly.

So, in William James thinking, the most helpful memory, would be a desultory memory - one that allowed anything and everything to be learnt, incidentally, without really trying. Such a person would end up with a broad knowledge of just about everything, they encountered in life.

Now, back to Ainan.

This morning, Ainan was watching the Guiness Book of World Records on television, as I passed by. On the screen was a quiz about footballers and the question was: "Who is the highest paid footballer in the world?" There were three choices: David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and a third that eludes me because, frankly, I wasn't paying much attention.

I noted something odd, however. As Ainan sat in front of the television, he pointed at the Zinedine Zidane and said: "Zidane". That, for me, was strange, because I knew, for certain, that Ainan had no interest whatsoever in football. We had taken him to try it once and he couldn't have been less enthused. I have never seen him watch a football match, either - so it was more than a little surprising that he should feel that he knew who was "the highest paid footballer in the world." I thought, to myself, that it must be David Beckham, so I paused in my journey about the house and waited for the television to answer the question.

At last the answer came: "Zinedine Zidane is the highest paid footballer in the world!" It then went onto to say that he had the not inconsiderable salary of $66 million US Dollars a year.

That really surprised me: Ainan had been right. This then called to mind, for me, the remark about desultory memory made by William James that I had first read of while reading irrelevantly at Cambridge University, two decades before, a text that would do me no good whatsoever in the exams ahead (they are the best texts to read, for then you might learn something new!)

It seems, if this example is any guide, that Ainan possesses that element of desultory memory that William James so prized. His sole true interests are scientific - and he has no interest in football - yet still he knew who the highest paid footballer in the world was.

The real surprise here is that, after 7 years of being his father, and observing him first hand, daily, that he is still able to surprise me. That points to something else: he is constantly evolving and growing. He is what he is - but he is also becoming. To be able to see that growth is one of the great pleasures of fatherhood (or indeed, parenthood).

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and eight months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and one month, and Tiarnan, eighteen 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

A new meaning of obvious

A few days ago, Ainan, seven, made the kind of remark that has become characteristic of him.

"One of the biggest calculations I have done..." he began, speaking, implicitly, one felt, of a mental calculation. Incidentally there was no calculator in sight. "...is the fourth root of 12,117,361." He paused briefly. "Now, obviously it is 59," he stated this without a hint of humour in his voice: clearly he meant it to be obvious (!), "because 59 to the power 4 is 12,117,361."

If there is an error in these numbers it is one of my own remembrance, because, at the time, I checked his statement with a calculator and found it to be true.

This kind of statement is the product of Ainan's growing familiarity with numbers. Now, I would not say that Ainan has become a mental calculator like his uncle Josh, but, perhaps with greater familiarity with numbers he may develop a good facility in that area. It is clear to me that is not his purpose, but it may be a side effect, one day, of his growing interest in all things mathematical and numerical.

We will see. Meanwhile, I have noted his new meaning of the word, "obvious" - as being absolutely inscrutable.

Ainan explores mathematics

Mathematics, at school, for a Primary 2 student is not a very exciting affair. Indeed, in Ainan's school they have got as far as addition and subtraction - and no further. Needless to say, Ainan had long begun to fret at the pace of things and had all but adjudged maths to be boring. Then something wonderful happened: he began to discover it for himself.

A couple of weeks ago, Ainan picked up a maths book and began to read. He soon found it more interesting than he had thought. Within days, he was beginning to enthuse about maths - and the range of mathematical ideas that he has absorbed in that short time is quite remarkable.

His conversation now concerns transcendental numbers, irrational numbers, perfect numbers, primes, semiperfect numbers, weird numbers, powerful numbers, mathematical constants, folke's constant, skewe's number (any spelling mistakes are my own since I am rendering what I here him speak of), factorials, roots, squares, cubes, powers, indices, sublime numbers, amicable numbers (he was particularly taken by these), imaginary numbers, (and many others) he has taken to inventing his own constants, writing equations, playing with functions, designing mathematical challenges...it just goes on. He has even written a maths book to encapsulate his new experience in words and pictures.

I also note something interesting. He has begun to absorb mathematical facts in great detail - much as he did with chemistry. His speech is peppered with numbers to the seventeenth decimal - which he has learnt as easily as you or I might remember our own names. He knows pi to seventeen decimal places. He knows e to a similar precision. He knows many, many different numbers, each of which are examples of the classes of numbers that he has come to know. He remembers the products of all the calculations of mathematical functions that he has been playing with. (For instance, he learnt many "conjective numbers"). He is beginning to draw relationships and associations between numbers and divine his own patterns within them. He is making number references in his speech - defining the numbers he sees in the everyday world in terms of other numbers about which he knows something interesting.

What is amazing about all of this is that mere days ago none of it existed. He had not developed any spontaneous interest in maths at all - apart from an interest in hyperdimensional four, five and higher dimensional shapes which he had nursed for over four years.

Ainan has just decided, one day, to look at maths. This is the same thing that happened one day, with chemistry - and look how far he has come with that, in a short time.

Even now, Ainan retains an ability to surprise me.

Now that his interest in maths has awakened, he is asking that I buy maths texts for him - so I shall make a trip tomorrow to do just that. I think Ainan's best teacher is himself. So, I will let him do just that - pick up a book and teach himself maths.

It is a happy moment for me, as a father, to see him develop this interest in mathematics - because I know how important it is to support his primary interest in the physical sciences. Without good maths behind him, some branches of the physical sciences would have been forever closed to him. Looking at how he has begun to enthuse about maths, I don't think that will be a problem for him. If he tackles maths as he has chemistry, there is no telling just how "numerate" he will be in a few months time.

(If you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three and Tiarnan, fourteen 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, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Tiarnan reminisces about his baby times

Tiarnan is now thirteen months old. This event happened when he was twelve months old.

He had been walking for several months, including up and down stairs and was quite comfortable on his feet. This day, however, he looked at the floor and got down on his knees and started crawling - something he had not done for months. As he did so, there was a big smile on his face and a slight look of amusement that he should ever have had to move in that way.

Clearly, Tiarnan was reminiscing about his crawling days - and doing so from a vantage of amusement that he should ever have been a crawler.

This is not the only evidence I have seen in Tiarnan of nostalgia, of some kind: I think he is a baby who reflects on himself and his growth and sees his own personal change. He is watching himself grow up. It is interesting that he is self-aware in this way and tracks his own change. I find that rather mature - and not at all like a baby is expected to be. Interesting.

Ainan's memory for molecular structure

Ainan has the habit of drawing molecules. There are two categories: the ones he reads of somewhere, and the ones he invents.

The molecules Ainan draws are now very complex. They contain anywhere from dozens to hundreds of atoms. He draws them with each atom labelled and each bond drawn. What I find uncanny is his retention for this information. For most people, the molecules would simply be too complex to hold in mind, at one time - yet Ainan need only study a molecule briefly, before he is able to reproduce the structure, later, from memory.

I suppose that his memory for molecules could be seen as analogous to some musicians' memory for music: they hold in their minds thousands of pieces of music. So, too, is it with Ainan - but what he remembers is molecular structure.

It has not passed me by that this absorption of structures may lead to interesting developments later. For, it is only when one has internalized a great body of knowledge about a subject - and made it one's own - that one can make evolutionary or revolutionary changes to that body of knowledge. Ainan is building for himself a very deep understanding of the molecular world - and yet he is only seven years and three months old. I don't know where it will lead him - but that there are interesting places it could take him, is clear.

This is just the beginning of his growth: I feel a quiet excitement when I watch him at work - an excitement at what might come of all of this.

(If you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, baby genius, gifted education, IQ, intelligence, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Tiarnan and musical nostalgia

It is said that young babies have little memory, but I have many reasons to doubt that. I won't give them all, here, but will just let one story speak on its own.

Tiarnan is thirteen months old, now. Several months ago, he was given a musical penguin, to play with. Everytime a button was pressed it would play a tune. Tiarnan got the chance to play with that toy for perhaps a day, before his older brother, Ainan had an idea for it. Ainan, rather wittily, wanted to know whether the penguin would do well underwater. In particular, he wanted to know if you could hear it underwater. Thus, Ainan took it down to the swimming pool and threw it in the water. Let us just say, this was one penguin that couldn't swim.

That was the last time I saw the penguin in action.

Yesterday, Syahidah, Tiarnan's mother, partly hummed, partly sung a tune. She managed more to capture the rhythm of it than the notes.

At once, Tiarnan looked up and looked around, seeking something. "Toy!", he said.

Tiarnan remembered the penguin toy he had had for a day, before it drowned, some months ago. For the tune on Syahidah's lips was the one it used to play.

Tiarnan got all excited to hear the tune and looked at his mother and said: "Again!"

So, she hummed/sang it again.

It seems that Tiarnan remembers a tune long after it was heard - even though it was heard only briefly. He remembers too where and from which object the tune came. He also possesses a sense of excitement to be so reminded - though it is difficult to identify the source of that. Is it the recognition that excites him? Is it the music? Or did he like the toy and hope that it would be seen "alive" again?

Perhaps I should go quietly to the shop from which it was bought, and buy a dry replacement.

It might be a popular move.

(If you would like to read more of Tiarnan, thirteen months, or his gifted brothers Fintan, three, and Ainan, seven years and three months, a scientific child prodigy, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)