<p>Roger, your post is in complete agreement with my own take on things (and I also made the same comment about musical prodigies in an earlier post).</p>
<p>It’s true that as early to college people age, they get more “normal” in the sense that they blend into their educational and work groups more easily. My son certainly stood out as a 9-year-old reporting to a tech company M-F over the summer, but not as a 13-year old in a different tech company where they had no clue of his age till he had been there a few months and a university EE told someone at the company (as the job was an internship through the university, only the university needed the special exception for employment paperwork as the tech company paid the U and the U paid our son). He also stood out in college at age 9, but at age 16, his students - who were graduate students as this was for a graduate class - had no idea their TA was even younger than they were…indeed, one nearly 24-year-old thought for sure our son was joking at a party the following semester when it came up in a conversation about early education stories that he was 16 and it had to be confirmed by the party’s host who knew our son from his first fall semester a year and a half prior and they were in a course together.</p>
<p>However, I do think these early to college students, at least if they are extroverted and/or speak in group conversations much, will always stand out as “not normal intellectually” just as my brother (who I am rather certain is “profoundly gifted” and never did an early college option ever even cross anyone’s mind for him as we just hadn’t heard of it back then) is noted as brilliant by anyone who chats with him for even a few minutes at a party (and he’s middle-aged, so it’s not a matter of being precocious at this point). There simply are certain people who, so long as a disease or accident doesn’t alter the picture, will always “stand out” in any crowd, no matter their age.</p>