0:03

Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told

0:05

You. From House toupports dot com.

0:12

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

0:14

and I'm Caroline, and Caroline a little

0:17

with something about me. I usually

0:19

start out my day listening

0:21

to Morning Edition on NPR,

0:24

as you I am. I am

0:26

an NPR listener, I'm an NPR

0:28

fan. And a little while ago

0:31

a story caught my attention because

0:33

it was on Child Prodigies

0:36

and the subject of the story was

0:39

this young woman who started

0:42

composing these gorgeous

0:45

piano pieces when she

0:48

was three years old. Three

0:50

man as someone who started playing the piano when

0:53

she was twenties six, I'm

0:55

quite oppressed. Yeah, And she had already

0:57

recorded a few albums, she

0:59

had played Carnegie Hall she was twelve,

1:02

and she even played an impromptu

1:05

peace for the host. He asked.

1:08

He set the scene of going having to show up

1:10

at the NPR studios really really early

1:12

in the morning to record Morning Edition. How quiet

1:14

and kind of gloomy it is there, And

1:16

so he asked if she could play piece

1:19

inspired by that, and she did

1:21

and it was beautiful, and I thought,

1:23

there, you know, it's interesting to

1:25

hear about this young

1:27

woman being focused on as

1:29

a child prodigy, because I feel like a

1:31

lot of times it's always

1:34

the boy prodigy, right, And

1:36

you don't even realize when you're reading

1:38

all of these articles and things about prodigies

1:42

that it is all boys. It's very

1:44

very male focused, right. And so

1:46

some commonly cited prodigies

1:49

that a lot of people bring up in

1:51

these articles include Mozart,

1:53

who began playing the piano with three, picked

1:56

up the violin at four, wrote his first

1:58

symphony by eight, and read his first opera by twelve

2:00

N B D New Big Deal Um.

2:02

There's also William James Sidis,

2:05

who could read at eighteen months, had

2:07

written four books by seven, and was fluent

2:09

in eight languages at the same time. Gave

2:11

a lecture at Harvard at nine and entered

2:14

Harvard at eleven, and his background was in

2:16

the field of math and cosmology.

2:19

And for lovecraft fans out there,

2:22

yes, HP Lovecraft, one of the most

2:24

influential horror writers of the twentieth century,

2:26

learned to read at two and

2:28

was writing complex poetry by six.

2:31

I would like to note, though, that I was also

2:33

writing poetry around the same time,

2:36

and my first poem was called

2:38

I Had a Little Ladybug I'm not even lying,

2:41

and my mother told me it was beautiful. That's

2:43

a horribul So I didn't start

2:46

writing poetry until around

2:49

puberty when everything was the worst. Yeah,

2:51

yeah, the dark, angsty poems.

2:54

You know, Caroline, we should just do an

2:56

episode of bringing in our teenage

2:59

poetry so time. No, well, you know, when

3:01

Geo City has wiped out its entire archive,

3:04

my poetry was lost to the ages.

3:07

No. Yeah, Well.

3:09

Some other prodigies include Kim

3:11

On young, who's a Korean professor

3:14

now, but at three years old

3:16

he went to college as a physics student and

3:19

no big deal, was invited

3:21

to the US by NASA to study as

3:23

he got his pH d in the US.

3:26

Yeah, I want to say at one point, and

3:28

maybe he still does hold the Guinness

3:31

World Record for being the smartest person

3:33

on the planet. I

3:35

mean, you'd have to be pretty smart to study physics

3:37

at three, But that's that's just me.

3:40

Well, what about Picasso? He had

3:42

a total grasp of the fundamentals

3:44

of art before the age of

3:46

twelve. But again, these lists,

3:48

like you said, are so dominated by

3:51

guys. And we have nothing against boy geniuses,

3:54

not not at all. But when

3:56

I came upon not one, but two

3:58

countdowns that shaller remain nameless,

4:01

that contained between both of them

4:04

a single female

4:06

prodigy. You start to wonder

4:08

what's going on with this, And as we'll get

4:10

into in the podcast, there

4:12

are some compelling patterns

4:16

within or among i should say,

4:18

prodigies that does skew

4:21

towards certain peculiarities

4:23

with the male brain, right

4:25

and Lynn Goldsmith addressing

4:28

the lack of girls from these lists,

4:30

she cited a study that

4:32

describes an uncomfortably large

4:35

number of historical cases of exceedingly

4:37

gifted women scientists and mathematicians

4:40

who found that they had to fight for the

4:42

simple privilege of instruction in their

4:44

chosen fields. And this is something that we kind

4:46

of touched on in our stem

4:48

episodes because the fact that you have to fight

4:51

to even study something really

4:53

affects whether you can develop the skills

4:55

and abilities in those areas. Yeah,

4:57

and this is a subject for an

5:00

their podcast, but it

5:02

often relates to perhaps

5:05

our concept of the genius

5:08

as being male. But

5:10

when we look at some of these incredible

5:13

lady minds, we can't leave out

5:15

seventeenth century naturalist and philosopher

5:18

and Conway. By the time she was twelve,

5:21

she had already learned several languages and had

5:23

begun serious study of science and philosophy

5:26

under her older brother. She continued

5:28

these studies throughout her lifetime,

5:30

and in her early forties she wrote a treatise

5:33

entitled Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern

5:35

Philosophy, which ended

5:38

up influencing to

5:40

to make a long story short, influencing a

5:42

lot of mathematical minds at the time. And

5:44

speaking of math, when we look at the

5:46

story of Maria Agnesi, who became

5:48

known for the math studies

5:51

that she completed while still in her twenties,

5:54

we see why there might

5:56

have been more impediments

5:58

to women being recognized

6:00

as geniuses to being able to pursue

6:04

those scholarly interests

6:07

that they would naturally have as

6:09

these prodigies um Her father,

6:11

who was also a math professor

6:14

at the University of Bologna, first

6:16

noticed her intellectual precocity,

6:19

and he hired a fellow mathematician to service

6:21

her tutor. But on top of having to study

6:24

all this math that she was really great at, she

6:26

also had to oversee the education

6:28

and care of her twenty

6:31

younger siblings. Uh,

6:34

there's so much ah with that.

6:37

But but she still was able

6:39

to publish a collection of a hundred and

6:41

ninety essays on philosophy, logic mechanics,

6:44

elasticity, celestial mechanics, and

6:46

of course Newton's theory of universal

6:48

gravitation at the age of twenty. So

6:51

absolutely this woman is a prodigy

6:53

if she is able to care for twenty children.

6:56

She reminds me of Lillian Gilbreath,

6:59

the mother or modern management, who

7:01

we talked about in our engineering podcast,

7:03

who did all of this amazing work

7:05

with an engineering and also had twelve

7:07

kids. Moving into a

7:10

female prodigy of the more modern

7:12

era is Schicuntla Devi, who was born

7:15

in She is a mental calculator,

7:17

able to perform exceedingly complex arithmetic

7:20

calculations with lightning speed.

7:23

And you know, if you've ever read any Oliver

7:25

Stacks, you know about these incredible

7:28

brains who can make these computations

7:31

at lightning speed. But what's so awesome

7:33

about Debby is she's the only

7:35

case of a girl calculator

7:38

described in literature. So

7:40

who knows how many there have been, but

7:42

she is the one that the history

7:44

books shall remember well. Speaking

7:46

of being a human calculator,

7:49

you do see just with those three prodigies. Right

7:51

there, this pattern that you'll see

7:53

among other prodigies

7:56

of being really drawn

7:58

to man and science,

8:01

two very rules oriented

8:03

disciplines. Um, But first, can we

8:05

take a moment away from the numbers and talk

8:08

just a tiny bit about words

8:11

and what prodigy really

8:13

means, because it didn't just start out as

8:17

a child who could do something exceptional

8:20

with their baby brains. Right.

8:22

The origins of the word lie with the Latin word

8:24

prodigum, which means prophetic sign or omen,

8:27

and in the late fifteenth century the word prodigy

8:30

was used to refer to a sign portent, something

8:32

extraordinary from which omens

8:34

are drawn. But then by the

8:37

sixteen fifties that meaning of

8:39

the child with exceptional abilities

8:41

is first recorded. But

8:43

moving to today, when we hear

8:46

about child prodigies, gifted

8:48

children, savants, the

8:50

lines between them are often murky,

8:53

but they are distinct things,

8:56

and we're focusing specifically

8:58

in this episode on prodigies.

9:01

And even though prodigies and savants are

9:03

marked by their remarkable capabilities

9:06

in specific domains like music,

9:08

art, math, chess, in particular,

9:11

savant syndrome is more

9:13

of a marker of an overall

9:16

disability. Right, uh noted

9:19

researcher Daryld Trefford uh talks

9:21

about savant syndrome as islands

9:24

of genius and ability in persons with

9:26

certain limitations or disability, like

9:29

kids with autism, spectrum disorders,

9:31

or other central nervous system injuries,

9:33

diseases or disorders. So it's kind

9:35

of like you're a genius despite

9:37

the fact that you have a disability.

9:39

And so the approach to savants is often

9:42

clinical. We need to fix their deficits.

9:44

Whereas when you look at the definition of

9:46

prodigy coming from David Feldman,

9:48

who's a psychologist at University,

9:51

a prodigy is a child, typically

9:53

under ten, who performs at the level

9:55

of a highly trained adult in a very demanding

9:58

field or endeavor. The approach

10:00

to prodigies is for more of

10:02

a psychological perspective. We assume

10:04

they're blessed and we want to foster

10:07

their incredible abilities. Yeah, And

10:09

whereas gifted kids do perform

10:12

at a high level academically, prodigies

10:15

are above and beyond and it's

10:17

usually focused in one

10:20

area. Um, but where did

10:22

the modern interests and gifted children and prodigies

10:25

come from? Its fascinating

10:27

because we have to talk about

10:29

this. Stanford psychologist named

10:32

Louis Terman who coined the term

10:34

gifted to describe

10:37

these kids who he felt like, we're

10:39

a lot like himself. Um and and

10:41

really what he wanted to do with his research

10:44

on gifted kids and prodigies was

10:46

to crush the stereotype

10:49

of the brainy, bookish kid

10:51

as just a frail oddball who

10:53

couldn't get along with other people, right,

10:55

because he himself had grown up on a farm with a

10:58

lot of hardy siblings, but

11:00

he himself was was kind of bookish, and

11:02

he was sick of the stereotype that he was somehow

11:04

weaker just because he used

11:06

his brains over his brawn. And

11:09

so when he came to Stanford in nineteen ten,

11:11

he was eager to measure intelligence

11:13

and get to work in that field. And so he

11:15

adopted Benet's intelligence test

11:17

for US kids, calling at the

11:19

Stanford Binet Test, and he

11:23

called this level of intelligence that he

11:25

was trying to capture the intelligence

11:27

quotient i Q. And

11:30

in nineteen sixteen, when he released the

11:32

book The Measurement of Intelligence, it

11:34

ushered in widespread i Q

11:36

testing. But there is a dark underbelly

11:39

to these i Q tests

11:42

because womp

11:44

womp Terman was also kind

11:46

of a fan of eugenics. Yeah,

11:48

this was a major push behind

11:51

his effort to identify these

11:53

gifted kids because he and his

11:55

group of intelligence tester testers

11:58

envisioned i Q scores dictating

12:00

what kind of education and jobs a

12:02

person could get. So whatever you're

12:04

a queue was, you would be a leader

12:08

or you would be institutionalized

12:10

and discouraged from having children. Yeah.

12:12

In other words, Termin was pro sterilization

12:16

for people who did not consider that's

12:18

smart um. But through i Q

12:21

testing, Termin identified

12:23

more than a thousand subjects between the ages

12:25

of three and twenty eight with

12:28

high i q s for his grand

12:31

study called the Genetic Study

12:33

of Genius, which has since been renamed

12:36

the Term and Study of Gifted Children.

12:38

And he tracked these

12:41

kids as long as he lived, and some

12:43

of these kids, who are obviously now adults, are

12:45

still being tracked to see

12:47

what the correlations are between having

12:50

these high i q s. And he also collected

12:52

their personal information from them obviously, and

12:54

how they performed in life in terms of

12:57

marriage, in terms of jobs, uh,

13:00

whether or not they got any professional awards,

13:02

things like that. And while this

13:05

incredible study basically helped establish

13:07

methods for longitudinal studies

13:09

and gave a great snapshot of

13:12

lives affected by World War one,

13:14

World War two, the Depression, all

13:16

of this stuff. There were some things that were

13:18

undermining his study. That included his personal

13:21

relationships with the kids, the fact that the group

13:23

was overwhelmingly white, urban and middle

13:25

class, and the gender imbalance

13:27

eight hundred and fifty six boys versus six hundred

13:29

seventy two girls, not to mention that there was

13:32

no comparison group. And even Terman himself

13:34

was confused by the gender imbalance

13:37

because he, you

13:39

know, he had asked for he had enlisted teachers

13:41

basically to help him identify the top

13:43

students in the class, and so he was

13:46

surprised too that they were more boys. Yeah,

13:48

but I mean it's when you look at that

13:51

sample population, they're almost all exclusively

13:54

too, from California, for instance.

13:56

So it's more, how do kids

13:59

in California who were brought

14:01

up with significant financial

14:04

means fair? And they fair

14:06

all right? Um, two thirds

14:08

of the men and women earned bachelor's degrees,

14:10

which is at ten times the national

14:12

rate, and that was happening during the Great Depression.

14:15

On top of that, and for instance, they

14:17

collectively earned three d and fifty

14:19

patents. Although this was something that was pointed

14:21

out in a few articles. None

14:24

of the kids in that Genius

14:26

study went on to become Nobel

14:29

Prize winners. And actually

14:31

I think three two or three of

14:34

the boys who signed

14:36

up for it but were later turned away

14:39

went on to win Nobel Prizes in physics.

14:42

Boom, there you go. Um. One

14:45

interesting thing gender related from

14:47

this term and study is that the women in

14:49

Termans study had fewer children

14:52

and bore them later in life than others of their generation.

14:54

More went to college and grad school, and more

14:56

had careers, and more remained

14:59

unmarried, and the sort of foreshadows

15:02

later trends. So these California

15:05

termites as they called themselves,

15:07

were sort of ahead of the curve. And despite

15:09

the methodological flaws in terman study,

15:12

he was able to highlight

15:14

shared characteristics among

15:17

the termites that you would still

15:19

see today with child prodigies.

15:22

And there are three big factors

15:24

that stood out. Obviously, these kids have high i

15:26

q s, but there's also a lot of parental

15:28

encouragement going on and confidence

15:31

rather than just having a

15:34

high i Q. Right, And

15:36

when you look into the definition of

15:38

prodigy that we get with

15:41

help from Terman, but also people like

15:43

Feldman Um. The definition of prodigy

15:45

puts an emphasis on performance as

15:47

a criterion for calling someone a prodigy,

15:50

as opposed to things like i Q testing

15:52

just looking at their i Q prodigiousness

15:55

as a distinctly human phenomenon.

15:57

So, Kristen, you just mentioned parental encouragement,

16:00

so tied up and being a prodigy

16:02

is that it can only occur with the support and

16:04

assistance of other human beings.

16:07

And so when you look at parents roles, they're

16:09

often involved in the same or related

16:12

field as their child prodigies.

16:15

For example, Picasso and Mozart's parents

16:17

were in the same fields as

16:19

their prodigious children. And

16:22

these parents are often older when they have kids

16:24

and are generally willing to devote major chunks

16:26

of time and energy to develop their children's

16:28

talents. And so behind this is the whole idea

16:30

that like, okay, well, you might be a frigant

16:33

genius, but if nobody helps

16:35

foster your abilities, you're not

16:37

going to flourish. And when it comes to fostering

16:40

abilities, there's also this emphasis

16:42

on the specific realms within which

16:45

prodigious behavior appears,

16:47

as opposed to again, psychometric intelligence,

16:50

which aims to assess general intellectual

16:53

ability. You have kids who are incredible

16:56

at math, incredible at chess, who

16:58

are creating the incredible

17:01

complex paintings, and

17:04

they tend to be unusually focused,

17:07

determined, and highly motivated to reach

17:09

the highest levels of their fields. One

17:11

father of a prodigy

17:14

described his son's passion

17:16

for math as a rage

17:19

to master. Yeah, in

17:21

order to punish him, they would tell him that he

17:23

had to go play outside, because that's

17:25

all the kid wanted to do was read and

17:27

do math problems. Interesting,

17:30

It's like an addict feeding their

17:32

math addiction. Well. Some other common

17:34

characteristics of prodigies include

17:37

great confidence in their abilities, along

17:39

with a naive sense of these abilities

17:42

in relation to those of others. There's often

17:44

a surprise that these kids experience that

17:46

others don't have their same abilities. They're

17:48

like, you weren't three when you want a Nobel prize?

17:51

Yeah, exactly,

17:53

And I would never want to

17:55

play a chess prodigy. They would

17:57

be sorely disappointed. Yeah, I would

17:59

just start giggling nervously and walk away.

18:03

But when you look at the science behind

18:05

prodigies, asking the question

18:07

of what exactly is going on in these kids

18:10

brains what sets them apart.

18:13

Scientists still aren't sure. Yeah,

18:16

it is still a little murky. And while

18:18

we talked about how you can't have a prodigy without

18:20

a supportive parent, most of

18:22

the arguments talking about the science of

18:24

prodigies focuses on nature

18:27

over nurture, Because yes, you might

18:29

have a supportive parent who make sure

18:31

that you do all your studying and you have the money

18:33

to go to college at the age of five, But

18:36

if you don't already have some

18:38

of that structural foundation

18:41

in place already that

18:44

you know, becoming a prodigy isn't going to happen anyway.

18:46

Yeah, and Ellen Winner, who was a psychologist

18:49

who has studied and written about prodigies,

18:51

told NPR quote, I believe

18:54

that anything that shows up so early without

18:56

training has got to be either a genetic

18:58

or some other bio logical basis.

19:01

But at the same time, it's still not clear

19:04

whether her hunch is right, whether that

19:06

prodigy brain is any different from the

19:08

brain of other kids, partially because

19:11

they simply have not done a

19:13

lot of neurological research on

19:15

these exceptional children. Because like we

19:17

talked about earlier, it's the savants

19:19

who have a lot of the scientific research, because

19:22

that's like, we need to fix these kids. It's

19:24

more of a psychologist's full

19:27

philosophical debate over over

19:29

prodigies. Almost, yeah, I mean because also with the

19:31

savants, if they can find the areas of the

19:34

brains that are working in overdrive,

19:36

then maybe they can apply

19:39

that to help other areas of the

19:41

brain catch up, whereas prodigies

19:43

will be fine most likely. Yeah,

19:46

And so looking at brain differences, there is

19:48

the possibility that gifted children,

19:50

for instance, have greater specialization

19:52

in brain areas that control motor

19:54

behavior and increased communication

19:57

between the two hemispheres,

19:59

although nobody's quite sure whether prodigies are

20:01

born with superior motor skills or if

20:03

they developed them through intense practice. Well,

20:05

and there are also issues of genetics

20:08

that come up a lot because the

20:10

kids from term and study those termites

20:12

went on to have exceptionally bright children

20:15

as well, with six scoring

20:17

in the gifted range, although again there's

20:20

a nature question of whether or not those kids

20:22

were being brought up told

20:24

that they were bright because they have exceptionally

20:27

bright parents as well. And then

20:29

there's this theory of ancestral

20:32

memory, which is something that a guy named

20:34

darryld Trefford has talked about and

20:36

and he thinks that maybe something

20:38

called epigenetics is responsible

20:41

for this. And epigenetics is essentially

20:43

a mechanism in which

20:45

environmental influences

20:48

will make small changes in our d N

20:50

a that helped to control

20:53

the systems that switch genes

20:55

off and on and pass those changes down.

20:57

In other words, DNA in

20:59

our acts with the environment to improve

21:03

our mental functioning. Yeah, there's

21:05

the commonly cited um

21:07

story of Yehudi Menuhin, who is a

21:09

violinist, and his

21:12

family story is really interesting. He comes

21:14

from a long line of extremely

21:17

musical, extremely spiritual

21:20

uh Jewish Men who

21:23

incorporated music into

21:25

their religious practices, and

21:28

so he's used as an example of this

21:30

ancestral memory theory because

21:32

even though his family immigrated

21:35

to the US and distanced

21:37

themselves from their extremely traditional

21:39

and religious ancestors, there

21:42

was something in him, as people

21:44

talk about being in other

21:47

prodigies, that that drew him

21:49

to music from a very young

21:51

age to become this incredible, amazing,

21:54

talented prodigy. And that sounds

21:56

very similar to this idea of prodigies

21:58

being quote unquote re tuned to

22:01

grasp and master particular areas. And this

22:03

is something put forward by that toughs psychologist

22:06

Feldman Um who thinks that maybe

22:08

they are equipped with a readiness to absorb

22:11

and also express knowledge,

22:14

and that would explain how

22:16

and why prodigies are drawn to very domain

22:18

specific skills. You know, there we talked

22:20

about how they're extreme specialists finally

22:23

attuned to a particular field of knowledge,

22:26

rather than having these kids just

22:29

be amazing across the board. And

22:31

then finally there's this theory put forward by

22:33

Larissa Shavivna and Martha Morlock

22:35

of the increased sensitivity.

22:38

They think that there are these sensitive

22:41

periods that occur when

22:43

basically your mental

22:45

development can accelerate really

22:48

rapidly, and and part of

22:50

what makes that process so rapid

22:52

is the actualization

22:55

of the intellectual potential

22:58

and the growth of those cognitive resources

23:01

at the same time. And it manifests as

23:03

a child's passionate pursuit of consuming

23:05

interest. But you can almost think of it as

23:08

like really rapidly building

23:10

a lego ladder, but of knowledge

23:12

and memory, a lego ladder of knowledge.

23:14

Um. But but speaking you mentioned

23:17

memory, there is obviously two

23:19

ties with exceptional working

23:22

memory in these kids. This is something that

23:24

studies do seem to bear out in terms

23:26

of prodigies having brains

23:29

that have just a finer

23:31

tuned ability to hold information

23:34

in the memory while being able to manipulate

23:37

and process other incoming information.

23:40

Because when we when we think about our

23:42

working memory, and how telephone

23:45

numbers, for instance, are split

23:48

up those three digits and in the four digits

23:50

to help us hold them in our brains, and

23:52

even then sometimes I have trouble remembering them,

23:54

whereas prodigies can

23:57

see a whole string of numbers

23:59

and many manipulate them at the same

24:01

time. Right, And that basically

24:04

you have all of this stuff stored

24:06

up in the back of your mind, but a prodigy

24:08

is taking new information that comes in

24:11

and immediately being able to kind of rummage

24:13

around in the long term memory closet

24:15

and pull some stuff out and apply the

24:18

new information to the old information. And therefore,

24:20

like we just talked about, build that sort

24:22

of cognitive ladder to

24:25

come to new and faster

24:28

conclusions. Yeah, and research

24:30

on gifted kids by Camilla Benbo

24:33

has also highlighted uh

24:35

specializations in whether

24:37

the child is more mathematically oriented

24:40

or more verbally oriented, and how the

24:42

math talent has a working

24:44

memory that's really great obviously at

24:46

retaining numerical, spatial,

24:48

and visual information, whereas

24:51

verbal kids tend to retain

24:53

the words. Because I'm telling you, if

24:55

you read I had a little ladybug,

24:58

I mean just the playful

25:01

puns kid,

25:03

I did have some good rhymes in there, though, oh

25:06

no, I'm sure you did um well.

25:08

So the researchers talk about how

25:11

this enhanced memory, like let's

25:13

go back to the ladder one more time. This enhanced memory

25:15

is a function of a match between the

25:18

kind of information that is needing

25:20

to be recalled and the kind of talent

25:22

possessed. So in a prodigy, it's that

25:24

unique intersection of I

25:27

already sort of have this capability,

25:30

this foundation of information that I've

25:32

grasped onto, whether it's math, whether

25:34

it's chest, whether it's the piano,

25:37

and you know, and that just

25:40

intersects with what they're able to do well.

25:43

Speaking of the brain of the

25:45

prodigy, and also this

25:47

puzzle of why we hear about

25:50

male prodigies boy prodigies a

25:52

lot more often, or at least we have historically compared

25:55

to female prodigies. We

25:58

have to talk about a potential link

26:00

with autism spectrum disorders

26:03

because this is also some of the

26:05

newer research that is coming up

26:07

with these extremely gifted children.

26:10

Right in Joanne Ruthstats

26:12

and Jordan Rbach looked at eight high i Q

26:14

kids whose various abilities were all over the place,

26:17

but in common they had an extraordinary working

26:19

memory. Each kid scored off the charts better

26:22

than the general population. But

26:24

in that study, four out of the eight

26:27

prodigies had family members who either had

26:29

an autism diagnosis or had a first or

26:31

second degree relative with an autism diagnosis.

26:34

Three of the prodigies themselves had

26:36

been diagnosed with autism, and as

26:38

a group, they all showed higher

26:40

levels of autistic traits than a control

26:43

group. And people have pointed out to

26:45

how autistic like traits

26:47

stand out in prodigies, like that attention

26:50

to detail, that rage to master.

26:53

The kids scored higher on

26:55

this and people diagnosed with Asperger's

26:57

in fact, which is a high functioning form

26:59

of autism. And on top of

27:01

that, both prodigies and kids

27:04

on the autism spectrum are

27:06

more likely to be male, and both

27:08

are associated to with difficult pregnancies.

27:11

Very interesting. Yeah Well, Time

27:13

magazine and pointed out that prodigies

27:15

appear to benefit from certain autistic

27:18

tendencies while avoiding the shortfalls

27:20

of others. So think of a savant versus the prodigy

27:23

um and the researchers Rustats and Herbak

27:25

wrote one possible explanation for the

27:27

child prodigies lack of deficits

27:30

is that while the child prodigies may have

27:32

a form of autism, a biological

27:35

modifier suppresses many of the typical

27:37

signs of autism, but leaves attention

27:39

to detail, a quality that enhances

27:41

their prodigiousness undiminished

27:44

or even enhanced. So, in other

27:46

words, prodigies genetic traits don't

27:49

compromise their social skills or lead them

27:51

to suffer from disabilities that typically typically

27:53

accompany autism spectrum

27:55

disorders. Yeah, for instance, when you look at

27:57

a kid like Jacob Barnett, who might stump

27:59

from earlier because his name is popped up

28:01

in the media a lot in the past

28:03

couple of years because he was diagnosed with

28:06

autism at two and

28:08

his mom eventually took him out of special

28:10

lett. I think when he was in elementary school

28:12

because the teachers told her that

28:14

he would really just never even be able to tie

28:17

his shoes. But now he's

28:19

fourteen and have

28:21

having been allowed to

28:24

kind of guide his own studies. He's

28:27

now studying condensed matter of physics

28:29

in college. And I watched part

28:31

of a ted X talk that he gave

28:34

about math and about

28:36

how when he first applied

28:39

to college he had to wait

28:41

a semester because the administrators

28:43

weren't sure whether or not he was really ready.

28:46

And he was like, you know what I did. I

28:48

just started studying this theorem

28:51

that some people are saying, if

28:53

I solve it, I could be up for the

28:55

Nobel Prize. No

28:57

big deal, No big deal. But

29:00

I mean clearly he's I mean he's giving

29:02

a TEDEX talk. I mean that he's he's socialized

29:04

very well and is performing far

29:07

above what special ed

29:09

teachers thought that he would be able to. And

29:12

talking about her son's just incredible

29:15

abilities, Barnett's mom

29:17

talks about how, you know, he wasn't

29:19

speaking, There was just no getting

29:21

through to him. She was afraid she would lose him,

29:24

almost But it was a matter, in her

29:26

opinion, as his mother, of getting

29:28

him in front of something that just absolutely captured

29:31

that incredible focus. Yeah,

29:33

and surprisingly it was shadows.

29:36

He was fascinated by shadows and how they played

29:38

on the wall and and you know, in other environments

29:41

and was also fascinated by

29:43

stars, and she just

29:46

let him kind of go with that

29:48

and really start exploring and

29:51

and it brings up all of these

29:53

theories about how you have

29:56

you know, those either those sensitive periods

29:58

or that pre tunement to

30:01

just absorb all that knowledge in that specialized

30:03

field at such an accelerated

30:06

pace. And there's I feel like there's

30:08

a lot of um like

30:11

media questioning as far as what happens

30:13

to prodigies when they grow up. There's less,

30:15

as we've talked about, less actual research

30:17

into what happens to these kids when they become

30:20

adults. One suggestion

30:22

is that just the prodigy, the quote unquote

30:24

prodigy disappears as the child gets

30:27

older and they catch up to adults

30:29

and kids catch up with them.

30:32

Yeah. I mean, there's sort

30:34

of a limitation to the kinds of

30:36

fields that prodigies are often drawn to,

30:39

in that it is very mathey

30:42

or very focused on chess. It's often

30:45

uh fields within very specific

30:47

and laid out rules, like that the work has kind

30:49

of already been done, and

30:52

so the prodigy sometimes tapers off

30:55

when they have to

30:58

think more creatively and

31:00

to apply their knowledge to more open

31:02

ended kinds of things, right,

31:04

which is why it's so rare to see a prodigy like

31:07

writing, uh, you know, writing a novel

31:09

or writing a play, because a lot of the

31:11

time, something like writing a play

31:13

or writing a scientific paper calls

31:16

on so many other resources

31:18

in life experiences that a three year old,

31:20

however, brilliant, would not have. Although you see

31:22

so many visual art

31:25

prodigies, or specifically with painting, I

31:27

feel like that's kind of the hot prodigy today

31:29

is the child painter. And that's one

31:32

reason why that psychologist Ellen Winner

31:34

was really impressed by the story

31:37

of a child prodigy

31:39

cellist who was

31:41

I think he's now in his late twenties

31:44

early thirties and is

31:46

branching out from classical and

31:49

trying to do more experimental

31:51

types of music. And she said, that's

31:53

really rare to see within a prodigy

31:56

because it's almost like that that

31:58

specialized part of the brain is so specialized

32:01

they get locked in right well,

32:04

and and I mean not even just being

32:06

locked into a specialty, but also being

32:08

told your entire freaking life by your

32:10

parents and teachers and whoever else is around you that your

32:12

omite, you're so incredible, you're so incredible, You're

32:14

so gifted your genius. I mean a lot

32:16

of in interviews, a lot of these child

32:18

prodigies and gifted children grow

32:21

up and they are like, God, you

32:23

guys put too much pressure on me. I

32:26

you know, I couldn't live up to a single

32:28

thing that you expected of me. There was one kid who

32:31

was a math prodigy and he is an

32:33

adult working at McDonald's. You

32:35

know. I mean a lot of these kids are just like, there was way

32:37

too much pressure when when I

32:39

was no longer the hot thing, you

32:42

know, I just felt like I was a failure. Yeah.

32:44

There's a young artist right now who

32:46

first made her name a couple

32:49

of years ago when she was a

32:51

six year old I believe painter. And

32:54

now she came out with a new exhibit

32:57

as a nine year old painter.

32:59

And people aren't disinterested because it

33:01

becomes less fascinating the older

33:03

that they get. But for that reason, Ellen

33:05

Winner says, it's so dangerous

33:08

to call children geniuses.

33:11

Instead, she says, say something along the lines

33:13

of your terrifically musical, and you're

33:15

going to have a wonderful musical

33:18

life. Um. And I also thought it

33:20

was noteworthy that in that

33:23

story on child prodigies that

33:25

first got me thinking about this subject.

33:27

On NPR, the twelve

33:30

year old pianists that they were interviewing

33:33

hates the word prodigy. She says,

33:35

please don't call me a prodigy. Yeah,

33:37

it's it's a lot of pressure

33:39

I can't imagine. Well, and especially

33:41

these days, if you're a prodigy,

33:44

you are going to be immediately

33:47

blasted out onto the internet too. That's

33:49

going to become your identity, probably forever.

33:52

But I do still wonder though, with

33:54

that gender aspect, with

33:57

overall the names

34:00

of prodigies usually being

34:02

more boy names than girl

34:05

names, if it does link

34:08

over to that relationship,

34:10

possibly with autism and maybe how

34:12

autism affects the male brain more

34:16

or differently. I mean, so

34:18

if we look at one and eight kids has

34:20

autism, but that number is one in fifty

34:22

four for boys, were naturally going

34:24

to find more boys with autism, And if autism

34:27

is linked to being a prodigy,

34:29

I would think those numbers would translate over. But I also

34:32

think that researcher Goldsmith, who

34:34

we mentioned at the top of the podcast, has

34:37

there's something to her theory that hey,

34:39

if women aren't welcome in a field,

34:42

you're not going to be able to even ever recognize

34:45

their genius in it exactly because

34:47

autism obviously can't explain that

34:50

gap entirely, because not

34:52

all prodigies are autistic,

34:54

and not all autistic kids are prodigies,

34:58

And so I have a feeling that the nature

35:00

side of that argument is maybe more

35:03

to blame, because I do I

35:05

do you think there's something to this

35:07

theory that we think

35:10

of geniuses as men? Mhm.

35:14

Podcast for another time, Podcast for another

35:16

time. Maybe our listeners have the answer. Oh, if

35:18

there are any prodigies listening, please

35:21

right into us, or parents of prodigies.

35:23

If you are a parent too, do

35:25

you think about whether or not your child is a prodigy?

35:28

I thought about this while reading

35:30

up on all of these children, and

35:33

I can see how if you're a parent and all of a sudden

35:35

your child starts playing the piano magnificently,

35:38

and you might get so overzealous,

35:41

But it seems like there's also a lot of responsibility

35:44

for the parent as well. Yeah,

35:46

but what about you, Caroline, would you want a

35:48

child prodigy of your own? Of

35:51

my very own? That does seem

35:53

like a really big responsibility. I

35:55

would in no way be able to teach or

35:57

tutor a child in math. So

36:00

I guess I would I would like a prodigy

36:03

dog. A prodigy dog

36:06

like it had a pre

36:08

tunement for not wedding

36:11

the carpet and a pretunement for

36:13

fetching you treats. That's right,

36:16

Yeah, the dog catches me the treats.

36:18

I think we're onto something. So follow

36:20

up episodes on boy

36:23

geniuses and prodigy

36:26

dogs. Correct great? Well

36:29

with that, we want to hear from you mathematicians,

36:32

pianists. Who's listening

36:35

less? No, mom Stuff at Discovery

36:37

dot com is where you can send your

36:39

emails. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff

36:41

podcast and find us on Facebook and messages

36:44

there as well. And we have a couple of messages

36:46

to share with you when we come right back

36:48

from a quick break. And now back

36:50

to our letters. Well,

36:54

we have a couple of letters here from some

36:56

women and engineering. All

36:59

right, Uh, this is obviously

37:01

in response to our episode on women in

37:04

engineering. Yeah, yeah,

37:06

who's the prodigy now? And this letter

37:09

is unsigned, so I'll just dive

37:11

right in. As a recent female graduate

37:13

with a degree in biochemical engineering, I

37:15

think that the STEMS series is awesome. I

37:18

was lucky enough to have family members in

37:20

the engineering field to encourage me to

37:22

pursue an engineering degree since

37:24

I chose biomedical. The male to female

37:26

ratio is pretty good at my school, but now

37:28

that I'm in the real world, I am one of three women

37:31

in my department. I don't find this intimidating,

37:33

though. I find it empowering that I am

37:35

just as capable as all of the men in the room,

37:38

and I love the field that I'm working in.

37:40

As for the industrial engineering being

37:42

a quote unquote joke engineer, at least

37:44

at my school, that didn't originate

37:46

from the amount of women in the field, but from the fact

37:49

that they only take half engineering

37:51

classes and half business classes,

37:54

which when you compare the workloads, seems

37:56

much easier. Although this may be true,

37:58

I think there are also many in engineers who don't

38:01

have a skill set to work in a more people oriented

38:03

setting, so the two are very hard to compare.

38:06

So thanks for that insight, UM.

38:08

I have a letter here from Sherry, who followed

38:11

her father's footsteps into engineering.

38:13

Sherry says engineering work can be interesting,

38:16

challenging, and project oriented, and many jobs

38:18

are just eight am to five pm on week

38:20

days, and she says it's usually

38:22

a more family friendly career path compared to others.

38:25

Plus, demand for engineers tends to be stronger

38:27

than in most other professions. In my experience,

38:30

I found that male attitudes, especially in undergrad

38:32

tended to be very positive towards women being

38:34

in engineering. The guys love that they could

38:36

discuss science and math with a girl, and they seemed to

38:38

wish they were more in engineering. I must

38:41

confess, though, that my experience and undergrad

38:43

as an engineering student was miserable,

38:45

suffering from the impostor syndrome and from a desire

38:48

to have good enough grades for law school. I studied

38:50

very hard and had very little social life.

38:52

I can remember studying on many a Friday

38:55

night. In the end, those miserable four years were definitely

38:57

worth it, though, because I am very happy with

38:59

my career now. I

39:01

think many women don't realize that engineering

39:03

is a valuable stepping stone toward other careers

39:06

like management, law, and even sales and marketing.

39:08

You have to be able to understand the product in order

39:11

to spell it. More and more folks on Wall

39:13

Street have backgrounds in physics, math

39:15

and engineering too, so even if you aren't

39:17

passionate about engineering itself, it can set

39:19

you on a path to and open doors for other

39:22

fulfilling careers. So thank you Sherry

39:24

for sharing your story, and thanks again

39:26

to everyone who's written in. Mom Stuff at

39:28

discovery dot com is where you can send your letters.

39:31

You can also tweet us at mom Stuff Podcasts

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