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Reading at 2 is well-attested by multiple sources. The IQ was a case of going back to the original kind of IQ test for children, mental age divided by physical

by btilly 5y ago

Reading at 2 is well-attested by multiple sources. The IQ was a case of going back to the original kind of IQ test for children, mental age divided by physical age. At the age of 6 he performed at a level to be expected of a 14 year old on the Stanford-Binet test. At the extremes of these tests, the bell curve approximation. So yes, his IQ was measured that high. But it is not strictly comparable to adult IQ tests. It should be noted that Terrence Tao's early achievements were well documented because he met Dr Miraca Gross of New South Wales at age 3, who was running a longitudinal study of Australian gifted children. Tao, of course, wound up as the star of the approximately 60 children in the study.

sida 5y ago
Do we know what happened to the other 59 children?
- wheelinsupial 5y ago
  There is a book with 2 editions published by the researcher about them. An excerpt can be found here: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746290.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746290.pdf The outcomes depend on how much and when the students were accelerated in school. ETA: The two extremes: “… 17 of the 60 young people were radically accelerated. None has regrets. Indeed, several say they would probably have preferred to accelerate still further or to have started earlier…. The majority entered college between ages 11 and 15. Several won scholarships to attend prestigious universi- ties in Australia or overseas. All have graduated with extremely high grades and, in most cases, university prizes for exemplary achieve- ment. All 17 are characterized by a passionate love of learning and almost all have gone on to obtain their Ph.D.s.” “The remaining 33 young people were retained, for the duration of their schooling,… Two dropped out of high school and a number have dropped out of university. Several more have had ongoing difficul- ties at university,…” Based on this HN comment [1] it appears the participants have been anonymized. It also quotes some of Terrence Tao’s education and makes a claim there was someone else who may have equaled Tao in math ability, but did not have the educational support structure to recognize and nurture it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11510032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11510032
  - ip26 5y ago
    It's great to see the positive outcomes of acceleration. I saw so many kids burn out on accelerated programs, and have generally become cautious about them. It's also nice to know that 2 years was enough for positive lives even for the "genius" children, which sets a sort of upper bound!
ACow_Adonis 5y ago
I must reiterate, I don't doubt Terence's abilities, what I doubt are repetition of borderline mythical tales without extraordinary evidence (albeit,I accept someone might say Terrance is the extraordinary evidence). sure, we have many attestations of speed reading too, and of course there will be attestations of people trying to sell a particular child or education method (or indeed scam). And I've seen some very convincing performances (and yes, 2 year olds can pick up some basic symbolism, recognition, and repetition). but they lack the ability to comprehend or extend past their specifically repeated contexts. if you film only the contexts of their true positive successes, you can almost sell it, but their errors in extension to anything but rote quickly reveals their comprehension of what they're capable of shouldn't be confused with literacy/numeracy. different issues abound with attempts to measure or quantify IQs in the extreme ranges at all, let alone in children for which there will be almost no standard applicable method, and it's interpretation is even dodgier. I mean, another cynical man might say, obviously someone who has lived a life like Terrance must have been given remarkable opportunities. since he clearly did not introduce himself to the gifted study at age 3, and given that we do not have standardised testing at such an age someone was likely a driving force behind him in his youth. the obvious candidate would be his parents, who partake in strong educational and repetitive training, but in the context of the pedagogy of Australian education of the time, would also have to had a very strong narrative needed to overcome some of the dominant "hold them back" attitude of the time. I mean, we see the same thing with Beethoven and the like. everyone is so focused on the prodigious properties of the person in their later life, critical thinking and skeptical inquiry tends to go out the window. we want to explain greatness through some inherent difference, rather than say the alternative: maybe Terrence is great because of some innate ability. but primarily it is almost certainly the opportunities afforded to him via his circumstances combined with the work and practices and momentum of his parents and his family and then in later life, of himself. relatively non-scientific hocus-pocus like "taught oneself to read at age 2" literally would go against almost all knowledge of language or child development theories. yet otherwise intelligent people accept such old wives tales without much critical thought.
- choeger 5y ago
  Teaching a (bright) kid reading at age two may be possible by my experience. At that age, with a lot of talking to grown-ups or listening to stories, kids can have a surprisingly immense vocabulary. But "teaching himself" is a little bit too much for my taste. I have a child that started reading at 5. It was very motivated and learned the basics in a couple of weeks. It really gets much simpler once they understand the basics. But to get there, we had to invest a couple of hours (say 5-10h total) into fundamental pronunciation and character recognition. Someone has to be there for the child to tell them the difference between d and b, or l and I, or e and a, and so on. Now here's the catch: For someone in the position of teaching a motivated, intelligent child, it may actually feel like the child is teaching itself. But that's presumably skewed by our own school/college/university experience of learning stuff we were actually not that interested in.

by btilly 5y ago

sida 5y ago

Do we know what happened to the other 59 children?

wheelinsupial 5y ago
There is a book with 2 editions published by the researcher about them. An excerpt can be found here: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746290.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ746290.pdf The outcomes depend on how much and when the students were accelerated in school. ETA: The two extremes: “… 17 of the 60 young people were radically accelerated. None has regrets. Indeed, several say they would probably have preferred to accelerate still further or to have started earlier…. The majority entered college between ages 11 and 15. Several won scholarships to attend prestigious universi- ties in Australia or overseas. All have graduated with extremely high grades and, in most cases, university prizes for exemplary achieve- ment. All 17 are characterized by a passionate love of learning and almost all have gone on to obtain their Ph.D.s.” “The remaining 33 young people were retained, for the duration of their schooling,… Two dropped out of high school and a number have dropped out of university. Several more have had ongoing difficul- ties at university,…” Based on this HN comment [1] it appears the participants have been anonymized. It also quotes some of Terrence Tao’s education and makes a claim there was someone else who may have equaled Tao in math ability, but did not have the educational support structure to recognize and nurture it. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11510032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11510032
- ip26 5y ago
  It's great to see the positive outcomes of acceleration. I saw so many kids burn out on accelerated programs, and have generally become cautious about them. It's also nice to know that 2 years was enough for positive lives even for the "genius" children, which sets a sort of upper bound!

ACow_Adonis 5y ago

I must reiterate, I don't doubt Terence's abilities, what I doubt are repetition of borderline mythical tales without extraordinary evidence (albeit,I accept someone might say Terrance is the extraordinary evidence). sure, we have many attestations of speed reading too, and of course there will be attestations of people trying to sell a particular child or education method (or indeed scam). And I've seen some very convincing performances (and yes, 2 year olds can pick up some basic symbolism, recognition, and repetition). but they lack the ability to comprehend or extend past their specifically repeated contexts. if you film only the contexts of their true positive successes, you can almost sell it, but their errors in extension to anything but rote quickly reveals their comprehension of what they're capable of shouldn't be confused with literacy/numeracy. different issues abound with attempts to measure or quantify IQs in the extreme ranges at all, let alone in children for which there will be almost no standard applicable method, and it's interpretation is even dodgier. I mean, another cynical man might say, obviously someone who has lived a life like Terrance must have been given remarkable opportunities. since he clearly did not introduce himself to the gifted study at age 3, and given that we do not have standardised testing at such an age someone was likely a driving force behind him in his youth. the obvious candidate would be his parents, who partake in strong educational and repetitive training, but in the context of the pedagogy of Australian education of the time, would also have to had a very strong narrative needed to overcome some of the dominant "hold them back" attitude of the time. I mean, we see the same thing with Beethoven and the like. everyone is so focused on the prodigious properties of the person in their later life, critical thinking and skeptical inquiry tends to go out the window. we want to explain greatness through some inherent difference, rather than say the alternative: maybe Terrence is great because of some innate ability. but primarily it is almost certainly the opportunities afforded to him via his circumstances combined with the work and practices and momentum of his parents and his family and then in later life, of himself. relatively non-scientific hocus-pocus like "taught oneself to read at age 2" literally would go against almost all knowledge of language or child development theories. yet otherwise intelligent people accept such old wives tales without much critical thought.

choeger 5y ago
Teaching a (bright) kid reading at age two may be possible by my experience. At that age, with a lot of talking to grown-ups or listening to stories, kids can have a surprisingly immense vocabulary. But "teaching himself" is a little bit too much for my taste. I have a child that started reading at 5. It was very motivated and learned the basics in a couple of weeks. It really gets much simpler once they understand the basics. But to get there, we had to invest a couple of hours (say 5-10h total) into fundamental pronunciation and character recognition. Someone has to be there for the child to tell them the difference between d and b, or l and I, or e and a, and so on. Now here's the catch: For someone in the position of teaching a motivated, intelligent child, it may actually feel like the child is teaching itself. But that's presumably skewed by our own school/college/university experience of learning stuff we were actually not that interested in.