How is a Child Prodigy Born?

Some researchers believe that prodigious talent tends to arise as a result of the innate talent of the child, the energetic and emotional investment that the child ventures, and the personal characteristics of the individual. Others believe that the environment plays the dominant role, many times in obvious ways. For example, Laszlo Polgar set out to raise his children to be chess players, and all three of his daughters went on to become world-class players (two of whom are grandmasters), emphasizing the potency a child's environment can have in determining the pursuits toward which a child's energy will be directed, and showing that an incredible amount of skill can be developed through suitable training. It is noteworthy that Laszlo Polgar himself was a modest chess player.[7]

A child prodigy is someone who at an early age masters one or more skills at an adult level.[1] One heuristic for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 15 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding field of endeavor.[1][2] The giftedness of child prodigies is determined by the degree of their talent relative to their ages. Examples of child prodigies would include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in music, Carl Friedrich Gauss in mathematics, and Pablo Picasso in art. There is controversy as to at what age and standard to use in the definition of a prodigy.