Are gifted children typically high achievers in school?
Many are, but not all. Many high-achieving or gifted adults show few signs of giftedness early on in life. It s commonly known that Albert Einstein learned to speak at a late age and didn t read until he was seven. Thomas Edison, Isaac Newton, and Winston Churchill also had trouble early on in school. Countless others, famous or not, have been misperceived as “slow” or worse in childhood, only to go on to accomplish amazing things later in life. How can we explain this? We can’t always. It may be that these late bloomers were products of uneven or delayed neurological development – their brains took a little longer to get all the “wires” connected in just the right way. Or it could be that the signs were always there but were masked by other aspects of giftedness – such as distractibility or nonconformity – which made it difficult for adults to see beyond to the child’s true talents.
