A lot of the children in the world are smart and talented in different ways. In Marshall’s article, “Child Prodigies,” Marshall focuses on analyzing the numerous differences that exist between children in terms of their abilities. This is clearly illustrated by the focus of his article on the characteristics of intelligent children commonly called “child prodigies” and the nature of difficulties faced by scientists in studying them. Therefore, “child prodigies” primarily stresses the nature of differences in abilities that exist between children considered normal and child prodigies, and the type of obstacles that scientists face in their endeavor to understand child prodigies’ futures.
Firstly, the primary focus of the article is the nature of the difference that exists between normal children and prodigies. This is clearly illustrated by the author’s assertion that, although children belonging to these two classes have equal performance abilities, child prodigies’ quality of performance is always higher as compared to normal children. Most child prodigies exhibit super genius qualities, as compared to adults, because of their ability to perform better in games, subjects, and activities such as mathematics, chess, and music.
This is proved by Marshall’s argument that, although adults can excel in such subjects, activities, or games, to achieve this they must learn or practice them continuously in school or college, a case that is not a must for child prodigies. In addition, as compared to normal children, child prodigies’ learn new concepts very fast at tender ages. Further, as Marshall argues, scientifically, the primary difference between child prodigies and normal children is the difference in the functioning of their brain’s frontal lobes.
Child prodigies’ frontal lobes are active when they are doing any activity, a case that is contrary in normal children. A common example of a child prodigy is Naguen Nagc Truang, a child from Vietnam who became a good chess player when he was only two years old. By 12 years, because of his ability and experience, he became Vietnam’s youngest Chess champion.
The second focus of Marshall’s Article “Child Prodigies,” is the nature of difficulties that scientists face in their endeavor to understand the futures of child prodigies. As Marshall states, such as the case primarily because, society tends isolating most child prodigies become as they grow; hence, most of them live in isolation for a better part of their lives without friends. Also, because of this, most of them do not live in environments considered normal by society, but rather they prefer to live in their own environments.
This is clearly illustrated by the author’s story of Boris’s son (Billy), a successful and a super smart kid, who lived an isolated and lonely life all through his adulthood because he disliked working with other people; hence, never enrolled in any job.
In conclusion, “child prodigies” main focus on differences that exists between normal children and children considered to be prodigies. In addition, the article focuses also on the difficulties faced by scientists when researching child prodigies cases. Therefore, considering the plight of child prodigies, the government should establish organizations, which should handle cases of child prodigies, this being the only way of helping them and ensuring their parents and the people surrounding them create good environments for their survival. Additionally, by doing this, society will give child prodigies a chance of living normal lives and thriving within the normal life settings of the society.