"And what starts out as a distinct advantage is usually relegated to a personal milestone. The child who learns to walk at 9 months isn't going to grow up to be a better walker or hiker or runner in the field than the child who didn't walk until he was 13 months.
I have to disagree with the walking analogy. Almost all top athletes showed enormous physical talents at an early age. Sehorn and Tillman are prime examples. Both men's mothers have extensively documented this. Both mothers also pushed their sons and sacrificed for them.
Here is an example.
"When when Jason [Sehorn] was a toddler, Nancy told people that he was going to be an Olympic star. When he was four, she put him on a large girl's bicycle and couldn't get over how he shifted his little body from left to right as he pumped the pedals, saying,
"I can do this, I can do this, I can do this." Nancy bought Jason a nine-dollar skateboard when he
was six and watched in awe as he glided along the street."
Tillman was doing ab rollers before he could walk. I've read his biography and it is stunning what he did at an early age.
So I would say the teacher has no empirical evidence to back up what she was saying. The analogy is wrong, too.
