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Slow Starters Have Higher IQ?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the assuming-they-kick-start-at-all dept.

lockefire writes "Science Daily is reporting that children with 'superior' IQ's tend to have a slow start in the development of their cortex. These children have a 'delayed but prolonged' spurt that causes their cortex thickness to peak later than their peers and thin much quicker. This effect is most evident in the pre-frontal cortex. 'People with very agile minds tend to have a very agile cortex,' says Dr. Philip Shaw of the NIMH."

5 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  2. No, that's not TFA says !! Ignore summary!! by javaxman · · Score: 4, Informative
    Slower thickening of the cortext != slow starters. Actually, it's not even slower thickening... it's that it gets thicker, takes longer to thin...

    Where the heck in this article would you get that it's "slow starters" ?

    Now, there may be something about the somewhat different early development of the brain for these smarter kids with the thicker, later-maturing cortexes, and how that changes their early behavior compared to others, but TFA ( and the study ) didn't cover that, now, did they ?

    Damn crappy wrong article summaries like this make me mad... somewhat at the submitters, but mostly at the admins. Thanks for actually reading and interpreting ( incorrectly ) the article, ScuttleMonkey !

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. Plenty of exceptions by Mr_Tulip · · Score: 3, Informative
    Before people start claiming to be geniuses because they failed math at high school, there are many exceptions to this ieda, take for instance Stephen Hawking, , Stephen Wolfram or Mozart

    All three were highly talented in their fields at a very early age.

    I'm sure I could find plenty more examples given time.

  5. Re:hmmm. by Guy+Harris · · Score: 4, Informative
    other countries (esp the ones that always show the highest test scores) let kids out of school as early as age 10 if they aren't suited to education

    Could you please name the countries that 1) always show the highest test scores and 2) let kids out of school as early as age 10?

    Finland is, as I remember, one of those high-scoring countries, but the Basic Education page at the Finnish National Board of Education site says "Basic Education means the general education provided for each age group in its entirety. It is intended for children from seven to sixteen years of age, and its completion in comprehensive school takes nine years."

    Japan is another of the high-scoring countries; the US Library of Congress Country Studies information on Japan says under "Primary and Secondary Education" that, at least as of 1994, "Education is compulsory and free for all schoolchildren from the first through the ninth grades" and a diagram in the report (PDF) indicates that this runs up to age 14. (The page on "Upper-Secondary Education" indicates that, even after age 14, "94 percent of all lower-secondary school graduates entered uppersecondary schools in 1989".)