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Child Prodigies

Former child prodigy becomes world's youngest professor
By Bonnie Malkin
Last Updated: 9:48AM BST 01/05/2008

She isn't old enough to buy an alcoholic drink at her local bar, but Alia Sabur can do something no other 19-year-old in the world can do.
The former child prodigy, clarinet maestro, black belt martial artist and budding scientist has been named the world's youngest professor.

Miss Sabur will begin teaching physics at Korea's Konkuk University next month, breaking a record set by Scottish mathmetician Colin Maclaurin three centuries ago, reports the Times.

However, the achievement will come as little surprise to her friends and family. Miss Sabur has been exceeding expectations since infanthood.

She gained a university graduate by 10, a masters at 17 and managed to squeeze in becoming a concert clarinetist with the Rockland Symphony Orchestra - aged 11. :shock:

Miss Sabur says her secret is curiosity.

"I just wanted to know how things worked," she told the paper.

"My parents encouraged me in anything I wanted to do."

But her gift is not without its drawbacks. By five she had outgrown her friends and moved on to secondary school, where her intellect singled her out as a misfit.

When she went to Stony Brook University in New York aged 10, she took her teddy bears to physics classes. :D

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1916783 ... essor.html
 
I'll have you know that I was a very gifted child.

I know that because my parents kept giving me away.
 
Too small to sit on piano stool, but 'Little Mozart', 9, will make BBC Proms debut on weekend
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:40 AM on 28th August 2008

Nicknamed Little Mozart, Marc Yu can't reach the foot pedals of a grand piano.

But on Sunday, the nine-year-old will make his debut at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

He was born with perfect pitch, a talent shared by only one in 10,000 others, and he practises on the piano for eight hours a day.

He made his concert debut, on the piano and cello, at six - the same age as Mozart was in 1762 when he gave his first performance.

At the Proms, Marc will perform a duet with Chinese pianist Lang Lang, playing Schubert's Fantasia in F minor.

Dressed in traditional white tie and tails, he finds it easier to lean against the piano stool rather than sit on it to perform.

Marc, from California, said: ‘The problem is that my legs aren’t straight. They bend a little, so I have to get very close to the piano and stretch my legs to reach.’

Marc started playing the piano at a friend’s birthday party in Los Angeles when he was only two. As children sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, he toddled over to the piano and started playing the tune.

It astonished his Macau-born mother, Chloe, because that was the first time he’d been near a piano. He never looked back.

Six months later, Marc gave his first public recital, playing Beethoven.

After his concert debut at six he won a £25,000 university fellowship the same year.

Marc, an only-child, credits his 34-year-old mother – a single mum until recently – for nurturing his amazing musical talent because she played Beethoven CDs to him when he was in the womb.

He was recently featured in a National Geographic TV special in America called My Brilliant Brain, which explored where genius comes from.

At the Proms he will perform a piano duet with Lang Lang, a superstar in the classical music world who is as popular in the West as in his native China.

Mrs Yu said home-schooling gives Marc the flexibility to travel and perform, while allowing him to learn at his own pace.

She said: ‘What other children learn in eight hours a day he can squeeze into 30 minutes or an hour. This way, he can learn whatever he is interested in at that moment.’

Now he also studies music composition part-time at the prestigious Colburn Music Conservatory in Los Angeles, and flies once a month to China for lessons at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

Marc said: ‘I like playing music because it has a lot of different feelings – expressive, sad, excited and happy. I like playing difficult pieces, especially those that my teacher says no to.

‘Practice makes perfect. You don't want a Beethoven piece to sound like something else. That's disrespectful to the composer.’

His mother insisted Marc is no bookworm. He likes playing in the park with other children his age, and recently developed a keen interest in card tricks – and gambling games like blackjack and poker.

Mrs Yu said: ‘Sometimes his energy drives me crazy because he is running around or jumping up and down just seconds before he goes on stage. I would be like, “Can you please just meditate or calm down or shut up for two minutes?' But he can’t.’

In his music, it’s not just short legs that cause problems. Marc desperately wants to play Rachmaninov’s second and third concertos, but they require a full eight-note spread across the piano keys and his hands are not yet big enough.

‘It will be four or five years before his hands reach,’ said his mother.

‘No it won’t,’ said Marc. ‘Things will be easier when I grow just a little bit more.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ekend.html
 
Wonder twins: Seven-year-olds are youngest ever to pass AS-level maths
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:29 AM on 15th January 2009

At the ripe old age of seven, twins Peter and Paula Imafidon have become the youngest children to pass an A-level maths exam.
They both achieved D grades in AS-level maths.
Child prodigy Ruth Lawrence was nine when she gained an A in A-level maths in 1981 before going on to graduate with a first from Oxford at 13.

Many previous young high-achievers, including Ruth, were taught at home by their parents.
But the twins attended state primary schools in Walthamstow, East London, and Reading before taking the papers last summer.

They are also given extra lessons at a centre run by Excellence in Education, a non-profit programme catering for children in disadvantaged areas.
A spokesman said the twins' desire to outperform each other was the biggest factor.

Paula said: 'I am excited to pass, but I should have got higher than Peter.'
The twins, whose parents Chris and Ann came to Britain from Nigeria more than 30 years ago, have three high-achieving older sisters.
The eldest, Anne-Marie, became the youngest girl ever to pass A-level computing at the age of 11 while middle sister Samantha passed a double maths GCSE at six.

Christiana also passed GCSEs and A-levels many years early.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... maths.html
 
Top of the class: Child prodigy who is about to take his maths A-level... at the age of TEN
By Andrew Levy
Last updated at 12:47 AM on 01st December 2009

At the age of ten, Yi Fan has already passed GCSE and AS maths exams with flying colours and is about to sit his A-level.
So although he's half the age of most degree-level maths students, his primary school had no choice but to draft in a university professor to keep up with him.
And while his parents are naturally proud of his prodigious talent, they are already wondering whether secondary school education will hold him back.

'Yi began talking about fractions when he was just three,' said his father Mizi Fan, 46, a senior lecturer in civil engineering at Brunel University in West London. 'His teachers realised in Year One that the curriculum was just not challenging for him.
'Now I find it very difficult to keep him challenged. I don't know where he will go to school because I think a normal secondary school would be a waste of time for him.'

Yi's mother Aihe, 45, a housewife with a degree in engineering, said: 'He has always been eager to learn and very inquisitive. We have never had to push him.'
Yi, whose parents met at university in China before they moved to Britain 16 years ago, beat more than 100,000 children to win a national primary school maths competition last year

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0YWXsJ6G3
 
Interesting that so many of these prodigies are from East Asia.

Worlds most academically demanding/pushy parents?
 
BeethovensPiano said:
Interesting that so many of these prodigies are from East Asia.

Worlds most academically demanding/pushy parents?
Click to expand...
Just annoy the PC brigade, I'll suggest that Asians are, on average, more intelligent than westerners..... :twisted:
 
I suspect it has more to do with families and parents approach to education - at least in some cases anyway.
 
BeethovensPiano said:
I suspect it has more to do with families and parents approach to education - at least in some cases anyway.
Click to expand...
Cultural, nurture rather than nature, eh?

That would be my bet, too.
 
Nurture, eh?

Of course that could be interpreted as saying that western parents are not as intelligent as Asian ones.... ;)
 
I find these stories incredibly depressing. I can't understand the mentality of a parent that would push their child into sitting A levels at the age of 10. Just let them be kids for a few years FFS!
 
Dr_Baltar said:
Huh? :gaga:
Click to expand...
The intelligence of the parents is part of the environment of the child.

A bright child with dim parents may find it harder to reach his maximum potential.
 
Some parents are snaringly and often oppressive with their competitiveness. Some nations encourage this,
 
rynner2 said:
Dr_Baltar said:
Huh? :gaga:
Click to expand...
The intelligence of the parents is part of the environment of the child.

A bright child with dim parents may find it harder to reach his maximum potential.
Click to expand...

I know, I was making or, rather, failing to make a joke.
 
Girl, 3, with IQ of 140 who already reads bedtime stories to her baby sister (well, dad is a Countdown champion)
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:25 AM on 1st June 2011

Experts say three-year-old Saffron Pledger should only just be learning to count, running for the first time or simply scribbling with crayons as her young mind develops.
But she is no normal child - this prodigy already reads bedtime stories to her seven-month-old sister and is set to become one of the youngest ever members of Mensa.
Being clever obviously runs in the family as her father Danny Pledger, 23, is an eight-times champion of the Channel 4 quiz-show Countdown.

After notching up an IQ of 140, this score makes her officially brighter than former U.S. President Bill Clinton who has a score three points lower.
Her intellect, which is 40 points higher than the average person, also matches the score of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Madonna, and beats Arnold Schwarzenegger (135) and Nicole Kidman (132).

The child from Southend, Essex, underwent a series of tests in a bid to be accepted into Mensa, the society set up for people with the highest IQs.
To join you need to be in the top two per cent of the population in terms of score, and Saffron is likely to join that very exclusive club.
Saffron said: 'I am only a little girl but I'm very pleased to be have passed these tests, even if they were quite hard.
'I will be very pleased to become a member of Mensa.'

Mensa said her results means her brain is years ahead of most other children, and would put her among the brightest children in a class of six and seven-year-olds.

Her mother Kirsty, 23, said: 'She was having full conversations with people before she was 18-months and where most children that age say just a few words, she had a really wide vocabulary.
'She's very confident when talking to different people, no matter who they are, and reads stories to her seven-month-old sister Willow.'

Her grandfather Dean Trotter, 46, added: 'Once she was throwing a tantrum, stamping one foot. Then she started jumping up and down on the spot.
'When we asked her why she was jumping up and down she simply replied, "I'm not jumping I'm stamping both my feet". Her thought processes are just incredible.'

Saffron is thought to be the second youngest person to be allowed to join the elite society.
As she is too young to take the written IQ test, instead Mensa's own experts will decide whether she will be invited to join based on her results.

The youngest ever member Elise Tan Roberts joined October 2009 from London joined Mensa, aged just two years and four months old.
A spokesman for Mensa said: 'Saffron's results from the IQ test will be adjudicated by our psychologist. We should be able to confirm her membership.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1O1M0N1ni
 
rynner2 said:
Her grandfather Dean Trotter, 46, added: 'Once she was throwing a tantrum, stamping one foot. Then she started jumping up and down on the spot.
'When we asked her why she was jumping up and down she simply replied, "I'm not jumping I'm stamping both my feet". Her thought processes are just incredible.'
Click to expand...

Bless. :lol:
 
I've never held the IQ test in much esteem. (The average IQ of Nobel Laureates is about 130 which is high, but not that high.) They mostly cover aptitude to answer IQ test questions.

I'm not denying she's a bright kid, but I'd have said she's more precocious than prodigal.

And some might argue that the "stamping both feet" thing is just the peculiar logic of being a child. It's the sort of reasoning kids do when they are learning about the world.
 
As a now adult, former "child prodigy" (passed the entrance for MENSA at 8, but we couldn`t afford the incredible fees to travel to their center for confirmation, or for the membership itself) - I hope that they don`t put too much weight on this in her life.

Once you`re no longer a child, it doesn`t matter one tiny bit. It is only while parents are judging you that the title matters. Once you are no longer a child, and your peers are the ones doing the judgement... No one cares what your IQ was 10 or 15 years ago. It is only remarkable if you stay that far ahead of everyone else for the rest of your life. I have yet to hear of anyone who has.

What is amazing and remarkable at 5 or 10 is hardly noticeable at 20. Those other children grow up too, and an early start doesn`t necessarily give an advantage.

That said - I don`t really trust IQ tests for a child so young. It is VERY easy to practice for them, as they judge based on the average for that age. My son is on the other end of the scale - mild developmental delays - and we have to be careful to have him tested only once a year and to have no exposure to anything similar to the test within 3 months of it. Children memorize these things very quickly... And with a parent who is not quite "average", it is easy to imagine them drilling on the sort of things used in childhood IQ tests. (Not intending to give a false result, of course, but in the belief that it is actually raising the child`s IQ. Much like the parents who teach their children numbers and brag about them being able to count, how amazing, when they`re really just repeating a phrase they`ve been taught. When asked to actually count something, they just tap the items randomly until they reach the last number - so 10 whether there are 3 items or 20.)

A good example - at one, a part of the test given to my son involved putting three different colored balls into bowls of the same color. There were red, white, and black balls... And red, white, and black bowls.
It is something that most children only "get" independently at near 2.

Of course, he failed the test completely by putting random balls into the bowls. No surprise.
Well, afterward, I showed him twice at home. I had him watch as I carefully put the balls in the matching colored bowls.

Surprise surprise - he could still do it on cue weeks later. Had I practiced with him before the test, it would have knocked his IQ score up by 10 or more points. Test givers ALWAYS confirm whether the child has taken any test or done any similar activities in the past so many months. It would be incredibly easy to lie about it. (Although completely counterproductive in our case - we wanted support, not to be able to brag about an IQ that isn`t real.) It is only much later, with written tests, that it becomes harder - but even then, you can practice for IQ tests. There are countless books on the market aimed at raising the score.

These days, I score around 120. And it matters not the slightest in the real world. No one hires you based on a score or thinks you any better. The opposite in fact. I feel I`d likely be a happier person had I been born with a lower IQ. Mostly in terms of not being as stunned by the stupidity that abounds and being able to make friends with the majority (as stimulating conversation is much more important than, well, popularity). Not to imply that I`m not happy with my life, but sometimes it does seem that ignorance is bliss. :)
 
Anome_ said:
I've never held the IQ test in much esteem. (The average IQ of Nobel Laureates is about 130 which is high, but not that high.) They mostly cover aptitude to answer IQ test questions.
Click to expand...

Exactly! I've said this myself for many years. IQ tests can't measure real intelligence.
My own father trained me with lots of IQ test papers, and I achieved a high score at the 11-plus. I never did find out what my IQ score was, but somebody told me I was a 'genius'. I know I'm not in actuality a genius, so I guess the test just raised some false positives. I dread to think what a dismal score I might get if I did the Mensa test today.

Anome_ said:
And some might argue that the "stamping both feet" thing is just the peculiar logic of being a child. It's the sort of reasoning kids do when they are learning about the world.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. :D
 
I wonder about I.Q. tests also. Maybe it's just the potential. My daughters were tested at school( without asking me) and the oldest and youngest were assessed as being at adult level at grade 2. The middle daughter who has always been slower than the other 2 was just above average but as she told me she hated the teacher doing the test and decided not to answer a lot of the questions although she could have.
As part of my further qualifications I actually did a course on gifted children .We met mothers of some gifted children who had treated them as such and finally homeschooled them as they could not fit in a normal school.
I decided that I would socialise mine as much as possible and I did notice that they actually adapted themselves so that they had friends although they probably could have shone more academically.
They are just very ordinary people these days without spectacular jobs but they do have friends.
 
Four-year-old artist's NY exhibition
5 June 2011 Last updated at 14:52

[video]

Artist Aelita Andre might only be four years old, but that has not stopped her opening her first art exhibition in New York.
She is said to be the youngest ever professional artist with nine of her paintings on show at the Agora Gallery, in Manhatten, already selling, with pieces priced up to $9,900 (£6,000) each.

Angela Di Bello, the director at the gallery, said Aelita had already developed a style of her own.
Her parents, Nikka Kalashnikova and Michael Andre, who are also artists, both agree that their daughter's art has an innocence to it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13660478

I think her pictures look pretty good! But they won't be going on my walls - I can't afford that much for art, however good.

(The Mail is supposed to have an article on this, but their links are crossed - you end up at a story about a tiger going down a waterfall!) :shock:
 
I think I see a nature Vs nurture argument here :D In an environment where both parents are artists is it really surprising that the girl wants to paint? And the style that she developed on her own.. at 4 years old she should be learning to colour inside the lines so how much of it came from her parents' "encouragement"?

I've never really been a fan of the "accidentally dropped the paint on the canvas" style mostly because it doesn't look like it takes any kind of talent to be able to do it.
 
Khalek said:
I've never really been a fan of the "accidentally dropped the paint on the canvas" style mostly because it doesn't look like it takes any kind of talent to be able to do it.
Click to expand...
Generally I tend to agree with you.

But if it comes to a choice between Jackson Pollock and Aelita Andre, I prefer the work of the latter! She does seem to produce abstract pictures which stimulate the viewer's imagination, rather than random blobs and spots that could have been generated by a computer program.
 
Rynner2 I tend to agree with you. I remember going to a playgroup committee meeing at the president's home when my older children were small. The other ladies were raving about an abstract painting hanging on the wall painted by someone I had never heard of but they seemed to think was very good.
Funny thing was a few days later my oldest brought home her latest creation from kinder and it was practically identical. She was never very interested in art but her youngest is actually quite good and she has several of her paintings hanging up at home.
 
Look out Bill Gates! Meet the latest computer whizzkid aged eight (who built his first website when he was FIVE)
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:02 PM on 14th January 2012

He's the computer whizzkid who is giving Bill Gates a run for his money - despite being just eight.
But age is just a number to brainy Jay Williams, from Erdington, Birmingham, who is fast gaining a reputation as the master fix-it for computer-related problems.
From helping his neighbours get to grips with the internet, to coming to the rescue when the computers crashed at school, Jay is proving to be a tiny troubleshooter.

He was using a computer by the age of two, and was five when he built his first website.
Aged just seven Jay became one of the youngest people ever to complete a globally-recognised IT qualification, after mum Sarah struggled to find a computer club to keep up with her son's burgeoning talents.

Proud Sarah, 36, said: 'Jay's very bright but he's a lovely boy too.
'As soon as he could sit up he was up at the computer, and by the time he was two he could find his way around one.
'He started off playing games on the CBeebies website, but that soon wasn't enough and he wanted to figure out how to turn the computer on, shut it down and do things for himself.'

Freelance travel agent Sarah quickly spotted her son's potential and set about finding a computer club to sign her son up to, but to no avail. It was while doing some research on the internet that mother and son came across a website for the European Computer Driving Licence, a set of seven exams covering word processing, spreadsheets and presentations.
Jay, a pupil at New Oscott School in Sutton Coldfield, tried out some sample questions and it became clear he had the potential to pass the real thing.

Sarah added: 'I couldn't believe that, in a city as big as Birmingham, there wasn't a club he could join.
'After he took the sample test, I started to see if anyone would let him sit the exams for real but it was very hard to convince people to let him do it because of how young he was.
'He did the first exam when he was six, and had done all seven by the time he was seven, so I am so proud of him.'

Mother and son's persistence has paid off, and Jay is now a one-boy helpline, answering queries from friends and neighbours with email and internet woes.
Sarah said he even came to the rescue when the computers went down during a lesson at school.

Jay has now been rewarded for his efforts after being highly commended by the BT Internet Rangers of the Year award, which rewards youngsters who are helping to bridge the digital divide between generations in their local communities.

Simon Paul, BT community investment manager, said: 'The internet provides a gateway to so many positive things and it is fantastic to see the commitment the younger generation has by showing others how to get online.
'Congratulations to Jay - his award is richly deserved.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1jXhXOr25
 
I noticed when I was teaching that children with Aspergers were often very advanced with computers.One even changed all the school's passwords.
When he was at kinder my son in law's nephew ( who has Aspergers to a degree) was so good if anything was wrong with the computers they would wait till he came to fix them. He still does this for extended family and he's very fast apparently.
 
Isis177 said:
I noticed when I was teaching that children with Aspergers were often very advanced with computers.One even changed all the school's passwords.
When he was at kinder my son in law's nephew ( who has Aspergers to a degree) was so good if anything was wrong with the computers they would wait till he came to fix them. He still does this for extended family and he's very fast apparently.
Click to expand...

I find it interesting you mention that - every I.T. job I've worked in has had at least one member of staff who everyone else assumed had Aspergers, or elements of it.
Whether they really did have it I don't know, but each of them certainly did have issues with social situations and some were also what could be termed "very particular about things", e.g. with one the items on their desk had to be arranged a very specific way, with another they'd clean the desk with alcohol wipes after someone had touched it, dirty fingers or not.

I've always wondered if I.T. was a natural honeypot for Aspergers sufferers.
 
A company in Denmark seems to have been rather succesful, with a specific course in IT for people with Asperger's Syndrome. It's called AspIT. I suppose it might also just be a sign of the times. If you don't want to be around people when growing up, spending time in front of the computer seems likely enough. Before computers they might just have buried their head in books. This might be part of the aptitude for it.
 
I've just stumbled upon this thread. I'm the mum of Jay (the boy in the article) So it's interesting reading it from an outsiders perspective.

The comments about Aspergers are interesting, it doesn't mention that he has that in any of the recent news reports. Without a doubt J has traits, mainly being quite obsessive by nature, very advanced style of speech from an early age, and just being a bit 'quirky' in himself. He was under review for several years but assessments came out borderline and it was agreed that although he has traits of AS it doesn't actually impact on his life in a negative way at the moment so formal diagnosis was held off. The doctor said he's actually 'lucky' in that he's one of the few children who get the good bit of that condition without being affected too badly by the bad bits of it.

Addressing the point of pushy parents. I think in the well documented cases of 'child prodigies' that's often the case because the child is excelling in an area that the parents also have an interest or career in. In J's case this couldn't be further from the truth. I've raised him alone and my PC skills were overtaken by him when he was about 3 years old! I use a computer for work but have no knowledge (or interest) in why or how they work, I have no desire to know any more than I need to in order to work and live. This is where we're poles apart, he's not happy until he's found 10 other ways to do the same thing or figured out why it does that and what happens if you try this...and more and more often now he knows it and knows how to solve problems without ever having seen it or used it before ('it' being whatever piece of technology may be at hand).

As with all news reports they'll put their own spin on the story and sensationalise it. This was never about me (or Jay) comparing him to Bill Gates or declaring him a child prodigy, it was meant to be a small piece in the local paper about his award from BT to praise not just his abilities but the fact he's used them to help so many other people. Somehow that made it on to the Daily Mail website (still not sure how that happened but I suspect local paper gave them the story and photos) which then spread to tons of other news websites and resulted in him being on TV news and radio this week.

It goes without saying I'm extremely proud of him and what he's achieved but he's done it all because he's so passionate about it and takes every chance he gets to learn and try more, not because there's a pushy parent making him.

I consider my part in this is just to give him the opportunity and means to pursue his passion, and to keep the rest of his life as normal as possible. In every other way he's like any other 8 year old and I try to balance his geeky activities out with lots of outdoor activities and social activities because I'm well aware of how important is it to be a well rounded child. In fact the day after he was on TV last week there came another call for him to do something for another major newspaper but it had to be that evening and I said no as he was going to play at his friends that night and after such a strange week for him I considered that to be more important at that exact moment.

Number_6_uk, your post made me smile as I had to go in to tell J's reception teacher that he had worked out her passwords within his first few weeks at school!

Xanatic, that's an interesting concept. I'd like to read more about that and see in what way they differed from regular IT courses? I'm guessing the content would be similar but the delivery of it may be altered?
 
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