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Today in Nature News, Tom Clynes publishes a nice review of the history of this topic.
He notes there have several large scale studies to examine prospectively children with high academic potential. The cohorts include:
- Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth-SMPY (Johns Hopkins)
- Duke University Talent Identification Program
- Munich Longitudinal Study of Giftedness
These cohorts typically use outstanding performance on a structured test to identify students at the highest level of performance in a domain. Spatial intelligence, the ability to visualize shapes in various perspectives, has recently received increased attention.
This review includes a summary of what is known about nurturing the gifted child. The table recommends aptitude testing to support parents who may feel their child is gifted. Special exposure to accelerated mathematics and other learning domains including AP classes can be helpful. Additionally, several summer camps for gifted are available where students often learn a semester of college level material in just a few weeks.
The review notes Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and musician later known as Lady Gaga all were identified by the Hopkins program. They all participated in the Center for Talented Youth at Hopkins.
The current talent identification and enrichment programs in the U.S. are valuable and should be continued. More programs need to be developed as many gifted youth still slip through the cracks.
Readers with more interest in this topic are directed to the free full-text article that can be accessed by the link in the citation below. This article also includes a nice series of references to primary sources on the topic.
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Clynes, T. (2016). How to raise a genius: lessons from a 45-year study of super-smart children Nature, 537 (7619), 152-155 DOI: 10.1038/537152a
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