To think that nearly any child could become a genius with early training?

[crunchymint]

I have been reading about psychologist László Polgár who thought that any child could become a genius in a chosen field with early training. As an experiment, he trained his daughters in chess from age 4. All three went on to become chess prodigies, and the youngest, Judit, is considered the best female player in history.

No, absolutely not.

Hmmm I’m not sure.

I train kids in sport. Some have trained since 3.5 and are amazing and then some one can join the group a few years older and just be so naturally gifted and excell then surpass the kids that have been training much longer.

I think it counts on a lot of factors, genes, environment ect but you can not beat natural talent

Stimulation and nurturing can increase someone's intelligence level but not every child starts at a level where they could end up with a genius level IQ.

No need to let that stop you teaching your children chess though.

No. You can be good at a subject if you focus a lot of attention at it, and practice. But a "genius" no. Besides, I think children should have fun and not be hounded by their parents to be something they're not.

Woopeedoo you're a genius/have genius kids. Are they happy? Are they arseholes? Much more important to life imo.

Er no, not at all. I have four, all raised the same. One is incredibly intelligent, one is clever the other two are average. The really intelligent one probably, on balance got the least attention of them all.

Sure but he was obviously an intelligent person who would have passed those genes to his children.

Becoming extremely successful at something is about more than just repeat exposure. Yes the number of hours put in is vital but you also need grit and determination, excellent concentration, often a high intellect etc etc. These traits vary between individuals.

Every child has a genetic ability/intelligence. with the best health and environment, they will achieve that and no more. If the innate intelligence is not there it cannot be created. We can help our children be the best they can be, and aim for happy balanced people. They are not experiments to be pushed into a life they didn't choose

YABU. There is no such thing as a genius in a chosen field. Either you are a genius or not. The requirement is an IQ over 140.

No, I disagree, mainly because in the whole nature/nurture debate it has been proved time and again that the most important factor in how much of a genius a person is is down to genetics (i.e. that bright parents will have bright DC and vice versa).

Yes, you can start your DC on chess, horse riding, skiing, speaking Chinese or playing the piano at a young age and they can become extremely proficient (even world class), but most of that is down to hard work and regular training - and THAT is something you can influence - but turning them into a genius if otherwise they wouldn't have been? Nope.

I think most people are born with a similar level of potential intelligence.

I think the school system makes people absolutely obsessive about how clever (for which I read how quickly they grasped reading and writing at a young age which is often after all how we measure academic success) children are.

This is why the previous labour government were right to push SureStart, and why streaming and setting in schools is such utter bollocks.

No - whatever you do with my daughter she will NEVER understand maths - she can understand it one day and the next look completly blank - it just does not hardwire to her brain. We have tutored for years and she still can't hold on to it. Spellings in any language she can remember straight off and she is top of the class in English. Maths homework is fun!!

When I was 4 all the children in my class in a very disadvantaged area could read. And I do mean properly read. Because there was a concerted effort to get all children reading, including homework from week one.

YABU. There is no such thing as a genius in a chosen field. Either you are a genius or not. The requirement is an IQ over 140.

Which is just an arbitrary cut off in a continuum. It's a bit like saying someone who is 6ft2 is tall and someone who is 6ft1 is average.

Never mind the fact that IQ score depends on the test used - Catell has 2% of the population over 148, Stanford-Binet is a much narrower spread, so the top 2% point is at a much lower Score. And the question of whether there is such a thing as IQ and whether IQ tests measure it accurately.

But of course you can have supremely talented people in a particular field, whetehr you call it genius or not. And people who score extremely highly on IQ tests who don't stand out in any field.

And peoples performance at IQ tests increases if they do a number of them. That is because your performance at the things IQ tests measure, can be improved with practice. So a child who has played with lots of toys that involved spatial awareness, will perform better on that part of an IQ test than children who have not.
Also in terms of parents, there is always a drift towards the average with children. So in general a group of less intelligent parents will have children who as a group are more intelligent than them, and vice versa.

Crunchymint do you know what happened to children who had intellectual impairments? Were they able to attend mainstream school with you?

Severely disabled children would not have attended the school I went to. But there was no recognition of things like dyslexia at the time never mind aspergers. So yes those children would have attended.

YABU. There is no such thing as a genius in a chosen field. Either you are a genius or not. The requirement is an IQ over 140.

Does anyone even pay attention to IQ any more? It seems a fairly pointless measurement in the overall scheme of things. 'Success' comes down to so many other factors.

I am not arguing that teaching early reading is a GOOD THING by the way. Simply that it is possible for perfectly ordinary children from disadvantaged homes.

In answer to the question, I think the right input and training can improve performance significantly, but if you're going to achieve significantly in any chosen discipline, innate aptitude is the main driver.

A decent proportion of children with aspergers would have genius IQ. I did.
It did not help much with school once I got to a-levels and had to put effort into learning and understanding difficult concepts while coping with the school environment.

I do think schools used to be more friendly to children with aspergers as you could sit quietly and get on with work and there wasn't as much emphasis on working as a team or giving presentations.

No the research is very clear that this is not the case. You can make substantial improvements but actually as you get older your intelligence tends to revert to your natural ability. The example you give is just one anecdote and is probably biased in itself. Why did he choose chess in particular? Probably because he likes chess and is good at it meaning his daughter's are likely to share his abilities too.

A smart guy (PhD educated psychologist) produces smart DC (unsurprisingly) and trains them to play chess. Then assumes because he could train a smart child to do that, he could train any child?

No amount of training can make an unintelligent person into a genius. Some traits are genetic - just look at dogs as an example. Collies can be trained to do tricks. Bulldogs are stupid. You will never teach a bulldog to herd sheep.

superloud That is an interesting observation. Most of my school time you could just get on quietly with work, so yes that is very true. Teachers would sometimes ask the class for answers, but if you were quiet but worked, you could get away without ever speaking in the class.