What happens to child prodigies when they grow up?

Countless child prodigies lose interest in their area of talent and drop out; others become experts in their area as adults. Only a tiny few become creative adult “geniuses.” It is impossible to predict which course a life will take.

Do most child prodigies become successful adults?

The myth was still very much alive in the 1950s, when Dr. Lewis Terman released his 30-year study of 1,500 child prodigies. In his conclusions, he wrote that child prodigies not only didn’t develop into sickly, lonely losers, but generally grew into well-adjusted, healthy, highly successful adults.

Who is the youngest child prodigy?

Michael Kearney
The current record for youngest graduate is held by American prodigy Michael Kearney, who enrolled at the University of South Alabama at the age of eight and emerged with a degree in anthropology in 1994, aged 10 years and four months.

What is the most famous child prodigy?

7 Famous Child Prodigies

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the child prodigy par excellence, playing songs on the harpsichord at four years old and composing simple music at five.
• John von Neumann.
• Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
• Srinivasa Ramanujan.
• Stevie Wonder.
• Blaise Pascal.
• Judit Polgár.

Are there any 11 year olds in college?

An 11-year-old child prodigy has become one of the youngest ever college graduates after obtaining a bachelor’s degree in physics at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. Laurent Simons, from the Belgium city of Ostend, got a higher distinction than all other students after graduating with 85 percent.

Are child prodigies born or made?

Many experts agree that prodigies are made as a result of calibration between a person’s genetic legacy and the environment in which the person grows. They argue that no one is born a prodigy.

What is a prodigy child?

Slide 1 of 32: A prodigy is a child younger than 10 years old who shows astounding proficiency in one or more artistic or academic fields. These remarkable youngsters have inspired wonder and awe.

Are prodigies really geniuses?

You’ve likely heard of them – little geniuses who started reading and writing at an impossibly early age. Child prodigies who make the news and appear on talk shows as an awe-inspiring source of wonder and fascination. They often join the ranks of Mensa with their freakish IQs and perfect SAT scores.

What was life like for prodigies in the 1920s?

Newspapers stoked the prodigy fad in the 1920s and did human-interest stories on the children, with some stories treating the youngsters as little more than nature’s anomalies. For many prodigies, life didn’t turn out as they might have hoped.

How old was Greg Gregory in high school?

Gregory was born in 1990 and by the age of 2 he could recite books and solve math problems. He breezed through his elementary education in 1 year and graduated high school in a span of 2. At the age of 10, he enrolled at Randolph-Macon College and studied advanced level physics, French and calculus.