Originally Posted by Austin
Originally Posted by Cricket2
In re to the original topic, if this point hasn't already been made, I believe that ultimately the same children who are gifted at 10 or 15 are also gifted at 2 or 3.

I don't think we know.

A lot of kids do not bloom until well after their toddler years. And a lot of early lights slide back in relation to their peers. Some have an event that pushes them into excellence.

I think you need a model of how the mind develops that will generate predictions which are testable.

Given the influence of internal biology and puberty, diet, disease, parents, culture, peers, etc, its a difficult target to measure or even model.
Hmm. So, are you saying that gifted isn't a constant quality and that one can be intellectually gifted at one age and no longer gifted at another or vice versa? I do certainly believe that one can be academically ahead (i.e. -- a high achiever in relation to your same age peer group) at one point and level more to avg later or vice versa. I'm just not so sure that ability changes that much over time.

eta: I'll have to read this over more closely, but I knew that I had this article somewhere: Gifted Today but not Tomorrow I don't know whether the authors are supporting my prior point that achievement is transient or whether they are also saying that ability changes over time. I guess that I look at those studies that say that gifted brains are wired differently (thinning of the cortex later like linked earlier, visible differences on MRIs, etc.) and think that those types of things indicate that they are wired differently and that isn't something that changes so much over time.

Last edited by Cricket2; 05/19/10 04:59 AM.
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