My iPhone just trashed a considered post I just drafted. Here's the abridged version.
Researchers' Hypothesis: high motivation to move and access novel stimuli is correlated with intelligence, hence early physical milestones as a marker of giftedness.
- My caveat: Perhaps, but for a child to make early physical achievements requires not just the mental will to do so, but also the physical capacity to exercise one's will. There is an innate genetic ceiling here.
My thoughts:
- The subject selection criteria in the early gifted literature was reliant on identifying characteristics such as motivation and achievement alongside intellectual ability. I believe the research suffered from selection bias in choosing only a subset of the gifted population based on temperament, resulting in an over representation of high achieving gifties.
- More recent researchers are cognizant of the disconnect between an achieving temperament and giftedness. As such, inclusion criteria are defined more holistically, and sample populations are larger, so as to account for the fact that the only face of giftedness is not just the classic high achiever.
Anecdotally:
- DH, DS, and I were all the "motivated" sort and had early milestones.
- DS scooted about 3 feet over to me on the bed on his first day wanting to nurse. It was remarkable because babies aren't "supposed" to do that, especially when hypoxic after a traumatic surgical birth and anaesthesia. He was a baby who insisted on standing supported from about 6 weeks onward. He wanted to see the world head-on right away. Never crawled, like his Mum.
