A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, develops one or more skills at a level far beyond the norm for their age. A prodigy has to be a child, or at least younger than 18 years, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding field of endeavour.
The giftedness of prodigies is determined by the degree of their talent relative to their ages. Examples of particularly extreme prodigies could include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in music, Magnus Carlsen, Sergey Karjakin, and Judit Polgár in chess, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Srinivasa Ramanujan, John von Neumann, and Terence Tao in mathematics, Pablo Picasso and Wang Ximeng in art, and Saul Kripke in philosophy. There is controversy as to at what age and standard to use in the definition of a prodigy.
The term Wunderkind (from German: "wonder child") is sometimes used as a synonym for prodigy, particularly in media accounts, although this term is discouraged in scientific literature. Wunderkind also is used to recognize those who achieve success and acclaim early in their adult careers.
Read more about Child Prodigy: Memory Capacity of Prodigies, Working Memory/Cerebellum Theory of Child Prodigies, Nature Versus Nurture in The Development of The Prodigy
Famous quotes containing the word child:
“The ease with which problems are understood and solved on paper, in books and magazine articles, is never matched by the reality of the mother’s experience. . . . Her child’s behavior often does not follow the storybook version. Her own feelings don’t match the way she has been told she ought to feel. . . . There is something wrong with either her child or her, she thinks. Either way, she accepts the blame and guilt.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)