I thought this was interesting and perhaps might warrant a discussion.
NYT gift link:
Link to article in Science (paywalled, but you can at least read the abstract and the above NYT article): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt7790
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On one hand I think that this is reassuring. You do not need to figure out what your path is early in life in order to be very successful.
On the other hand I think that this is consistent with what I have seen. There may be some exceptions particularly in athletic areas (tennis comes to mind). However, the people who I have known who have been particularly successful have often had multiple interests, and have tried a few things that did not work all that well before they tried whatever they did that worked out particularly well. Engineers or mathematicians who play musical instruments is one example that I seen and have mentioned before.
And sometimes there are overlaps between fields, in the sense that something that you learn in one area might be useful in some other area. Something in math might help you in sailing, or vice versa, or maybe a thought might combine some other fields.
But I do think that this varies from one person to the next.
Maybe the primary takeaway is that if you graduate high school, or even graduate university, and still do not know what you are going to do with your career, that is entirely okay. There is lots and lots of time to figure it out.
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This seems like a difficult topic to study - especially outside of the athletic world. That may be because I only read the NY Times article, not the full study. But how does a noble prize winning chemist focus on only one thing as a child? I agree with the Harvard researcher who opined that most of these high achievers would have been “recognized as unusual as children.”
There is also some luck involved. The high level athlete who get a career-ending injury. The scientist who does very high level work, but gets on the wrong project so is not recognized for the top prize. OTOH, burnout is real and kids that excel at one thing do not choose that path and may find as they grow up they really don’t want to continue.
The study does show that prodigies tend to do quite well, making it almost to the top of their field. For parents, the question that is tough is whether their high achieving little gymnast is bound for the Olympics, the NCAA or simply is excellent at her sport, but moves on to other things as she ages. Do you pour money into the sport, even though you know the odds are very long, but this child might be that good?
I only know one sport: figure skating. There really are no late bloomers in skating - if you’re not hitting certain elements by puberty, you probably never will.
I have watched “prodigies” over several years. Most burn out - it’s just too intense to keep it up, even if they are very naturally talented. Some decide they want more out of life - skating, to reach the high levels, becomes all encompassing. You basically must give up a normal childhood for a really long shot at success, one that can be taken away in an instant (with an injury, a growth spurt, etc.)
I watched Alysa Liu grow up - from about age 7 until the Olympics. What’s interesting is that her dad was obsessed with Michelle Kwan and, even before Alysa was born, he was determined for to be the next Michelle Kwan. And it sort of worked. She was very talented of course, and she trained intensely. She dropped out of traditional school around 6th grade to spend the entire day at the rink training (she did a flexible online school, although didn’t have homework, and just did a minimum for an hour or two a day). She made the Olympic and then, quite dramatically, quit skating entirely. She was completely burnt out from it. She gave up her childhood for it. She wanted to be normal. She enrolled in UCLA. Having very little experience with formal education, UCLA didn’t go great (to be honest, I am not sure if she is still technically enrolled or if she officially dropped out). Or maybe she just found that being normal wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. So she returned to the only thing she knew: skating. Fortunately, she is doing fantastically well and will likely go to the Olympics again. But here’s the thing: what else is she going to do at this point? This is all she has and all she has ever known. She is happy and successful, which is wonderful. But in five years? Ten years? All she will be qualified for is coaching - and if she’s happy with that, wonderful, with her credentials, she should be able to make a very nice living doing that. Of course, she is still young, and can set a different course, if she is determined to do so. But I think she has essentially just “given in” to the role of skater and accepted this as her fate. Now, that sounds dire and dramatic and I don’t mean it quite that way - she seems very happy. But I also wonder, really, how much choice she has.
And all of this started before she was even born with her father’s determination to turn her into Michelle Kwan 2.0. Isn’t that crazy?
Well, and my other experience somewhat related to all of this is having attended a gifted school from 4th - 12th grade. My former classmates have had incredibly varied outcomes. Some have in fact reached the pinnacle of their fields. Some burned out on academics and have since chosen other paths with less pressure of that sort. An unfortunate observation is the number who have dealt with alcohol and drug dependencies throughout their lives. I realize that all kinds of people deal with such things, but the percentage seems particularly high among my former classmates that I do wonder about a connection - either something chemical in their brains linking giftedness to such a proclivity, or perhaps just the pressure of living up to certain expectations. I don’t know.
This is never surprising to me! Music is basically just math 
I’m over 50 and still sometimes feel that way. But I mean that in a positive sense. I’ve done lots of different things throughout my education and career and hope to try a few more things before I retire.
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The linked Science page includes this sentence: “Top secondary students and later top university students are also nearly 90% different people.”
Since the name (prestige) of your university is based on your secondary school achievements, that suggests that hiring based on that (i.e. based on the selection of secondary school graduates by university admissions) misses most of the actual elite achievers by the time they graduate from university.
Also, the progress of child prodigies and late bloomers is somewhat dependent on the opportunity environment that one grows up in. Someone in a low opportunity environment may not be recognized as a child prodigy and may not have opportunity to explore different paths later in life if they are just focused on survival needs.
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Our daughters figure skated, but not on a particularly serious level. One daughter had a friend who was very, very good. The friend was doing double axels at a relatively young age and was also very graceful (and a nice person, as were her parents). The friend at one point needed to decide whether to focus on skating and hope to get to the Olympics, or to focus on some combination of academics and having a life. She decided on the latter approach. I am pretty sure that she is an MD now (and is no longer skating competitively). I think that my daughter’s friend made the right decision, although I would not question anyone who made a different decision in the same situation.
This can be a tough decision for someone who is very, very good at a sport, or music, or any one of several other things.
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Why do we have 12 notes in a scale? Because the 5th power of the 12th root of two is very, very close to 1.33…, and the 7th power of the 12th root of two is very, very close to 1.50. Thus the harmonics line up quite well.
And who but a mathematician would think that this is obvious?
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Dominque Moceanu was also targeted from birth by her parents to be a phenom. Her sport was gymnastics. Her father brought her to Bela Karolyi when she was a toddler wanting him to begin training her. He was told by Bela to wait until she was 6 or so, I think. It worked and she became a world champion. But she is estranged from her parents mainly because she learned she had a sister with birth defects that had been given up for adoption before she was born. The sister didn’t fit the plan.
Yesterday, a well known gymnastics coach was suspended from coaching and training for five years. He had coached some very good gymnasts, but never an Olympian. He was known to be emotionally abusive and one of his gymnasts died of anorexia while another was paralyzed when attempting a difficult vault (the vault that began with a round off onto the board, then a backward approach to the old narrow vaulting horse. Those incidents were over 30 years ago, but he was still coaching and being abusive according to what I’ve read. Lots of parents from his gym support him even after being suspended. Whatever it takes, I suppose.
I actually attended a couple of camps when I was young where he coached and I liked him a lot. He wasn’t problematic at all during camp, but that was early in his career.
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What I am personally sharing may not truly be what the article or this thread is about. But this thread does make me think of my two grown children. I would never refer to either of them as a prodigy or late bloomer. However, I would say that their paths to success differed, though each is now at the top of their respective fields. The upshot, in my view, is that neither pathway was better than the other, and each landed pretty much as high as one can go (of course, they can keep reaching as they are in their 30s, but have already achieved highly). And while their paths differed in some ways, both have a common theme, and that is they are self-driven.
Our kids were exposed to a variety of interests and activities as children, but ultimately they always chose what they wanted to do. They were not pushed into pursuing anything and all choices were theirs to make. As children, both were involved in a myriad of interests.
My oldest continued all the way up to high school graduation, being involved in many interests, never wanting to give any of them up. Even her college essay talked about the many sides of herself. She liked being “well-rounded.” She had some direction prior to college, but in a field that is not studied in our high school, architecture. But she wasn’t positive or ready to commit to architecture prior to entering college and did a BA degree program in Architectural Studies. She then went to MIT to earn an MArch to become an architect and partway through that program, decided she didn’t want to become an architectural designer, but wanted to focus on sustainability in architecture and switched to an MS in Architecture in Building Science and Sustainability. So, she was still figuring things out at that time in life. She has gone on to a high-level position in sustainability in architecture. So, this is someone who liked many things (and actually the field of architecture involves many different areas), and decided her career direction once in graduate school.
My younger child was also involved in lots of the same activities as a kid, like her sister. But she gave up all of them to focus on only one of them by middle school…musical theater. But even in nursery school, it seemed obvious she was going to pursue this field, and she did. I even recall her nursery school “report card” referring to that. It was a lifelong passion from a very young age. She went to college for it and has earned her living in it since graduating from college at age 20. She is living her childhood dreams and has reached the pinnacle of them. This is someone who knew from a very young age what she wanted to do in her life and is doing it.
Again, I would not call either a child prodigy or a late bloomer. But one path was very focused from a young age (we never discussed what she would major in for college…we could tell from early childhood) and the other had varied interests, narrowed down a direction, and narrowed further within grad school. Both are professionally doing their dream jobs.
I bring these two pathways up from time to time with the students whom I advise as a college counselor. Some know their lifelong passion at a young age, what they want to study in college, and the career they want to have. Some have no idea or are figuring it out and exploring all through college, and that’s OK too. In both cases, one can become successful. What I DO see as a common link to these different journeys is being very driven, motivated, goal-oriented, etc. Fiercely so. But I don’t think either journey is “better” as both became successful. So, whatever happens naturally….whether specializing at a young age or exploring and finding your passion later….doesn’t truly matter. That’s my anecdotal sample of two!
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Is there also a plateau that often occurs? A kid may be top of the class as a young kid, but either due to personality, the fact that their skill set does not encompass complex work or loss of interest, do not continue at the top. A kid may be an early reader but does not stay on that trajectory. Child actors also come to mind. Some seem great in kid roles but do not grow up to be great actors.
There are certainly more than one path to success. Thanks for sharing.
I had met you at our NYC meet up and was so happy to read of your younger daughter’s success in theater. And know your older DD is also very successful, just in a less visible role. Hope you all have a great 2026!
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