Brains of smart kids develop differently

[DoYouEverWonder]

March 30, 2006

NEW YORK - Very smart children, despite their reputation for being ahead of their peers mentally, actually lag behind other kids in development of the "thinking" part of the brain, a study says.

The brain's outer mantle, or cortex, gets thicker and then thins during childhood and the teen years. The study found that in kids with superior intelligence, the cortex reaches its thickest stage a few years later than in other children.

Nobody knows what causes that or how it relates to superior intelligence. But researchers said the finding does not rule out a role for environment - such as intellectual stimulation - in affecting a child's level of intelligence.

In fact, the brain's delay in thickening may promote higher intelligence because it means a child is older and processing more complex experiences while the cortex is building up, said Dr. Judith Rapoport, study co-author.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/03/30/Worldandnation/Brains_of_smart_kids_.shtml

Well whatever it is that happens to smart brains, I am sure the exact opposite happened to Bush's brain.

[NVMojo]

1. interesting!

[Porcupine]

2. Another victory for the totally obvious

Being smart in whatever brand of intelligence that you bring to the world is NOT simply being able to think like everybody else just faster. It's a different world view entirely.

I was one of those kids identified early as "gifted and talented;" while schools may do certain things to expand your horizens they tend to do them in mundane ways. It turns out that many people who are "gifted" have among other things social handicaps. We're nerds.

What we keep trying to do is describe our world to people who see an entirely different world. It's like describing a view of Mount Shasta from different sides. From the south Shasta is a green cone with a white peak like Fuji. From the North it rises out of a desert with surrounding cinder cones like Mordor. Same mountain, different experience.

So now they come along and say..."Oh yeah, smart people really are different physically." Well duuh.

[Demeter]

5. Define Social Handicap

Does that mean "having a difficult time finding anyone interested in your topic?" How about "trying to dumb down your vocabulary so that the other person can understand you?" How about "trying to contain your impatience as it takes anywhere from 20 minutes to twenty years for the person next to you to catch up with where you are?"

The autistic have social handicaps. They cannot pick up on social cues. The gifted lack peers. The autistic and gifted are doubly disadvantaged.

[depakid]

23. Thank you.

TAG kids deal with a lot of shit growing up.

And lack of understanding is probably the biggest one to deal with- and easiest one to cure.

[Kailassa]

34. When you can hear the words the other kids say,

but you can't figure out what they are on about,
when you try and join in ,
and they look at you as though you are a zit on someone's backside,
when you can't figure out how people make friends
or how to get a group's acceptance,

then you know you have a social handicap.

Not all bright kids are like that, but I often was.

[Porcupine]

35. It took me years to learn NOT to express ideas in conversation

The ugly truth was that if I was interested in some idea about how the world worked nobody around me could give a crap. They wanted to talk about clothes, bands and who had the cool car.

I couldn't have cared less. I was reading the daily paper (well, the news, scene and business sections) in seventh grade. I might as well have been an alien.

[Kailassa]

39. I know that feeling of being an alien.

I've wondered in we did not evolve this way for a reason.

There are always some people who feel they are looking at society from the outside, and can never absorb society's priorities and beliefs the way most people seem to. But being outside gives you a different perspective, you can see things from outside that you are blind to when you are part of it. It could be that it's been important to societies over the ages to have people on the outer, people who can point out what is going on and try to nudge things into a different direction.

[laundry_queen]

42. This was me also.

I was lucky in that I had 'popular' friends, however it was because I learned to STFU after numerous "what the hell were you just talking about??" episodes.

[Jim__]

10. So, it's obvious to you that the cortex develops later in intelligent kids

You must be very gifted indeed!

[Igel]

17. A professor I once had said that you never go wrong stating

the obvious.

Almost nobody is ever aware of it. It's rather like the twin study; that should have been obvious, but nobody wanted to believe it, and people really wanted to disbelieve it.

But in this case, it's not obvious: sure, there are differences in cognitive ability, cognition is a function of neurophysiology; neurophysiology is all anatomy and biochemistry, so there must be some physical difference. Obviously. But that leaves a lot of unknowns to be unobvious. I've seen lots of things declared 'obvious' after the fact, and things that were 'obvious' debunked by hard data ...

This is developmental, it is independent of environment, and knocks some competing claims that at one time seemed obvious, but which are wrong, on the head. Environmental effects may be there, but if so they have competition, and may not even be dominant in many respects.

There are various ways that the same developmental end could be achieved (for example, instead of additional cortical growth, merely a different sort of pruning, or later pruning; or the neural network initially formed may be denser). The actual mechanism was unknown, hardly obvious. And now that this little bit is known, a new set of hypotheses--none of which were very obvious before--go into competition. Which one's obvious and which one's right--if any--might be different.

Moreover, if it's developmental, it's not clear that environmental (i.e., social, cultural, or educational) factors can offset the difference, or should be forced to. If it's developmental, they can identify exactly what set of genes and chemical signals yield this: that may allow them to produce parallel growth in kids that wouldn't otherwise experience it, augment growth in kids that would normally experience it, or identify more easily toxins that can interfere with the exceptional or average development. It may have been obvious that toxins could, but how and why weren't: they still aren't, but if the work's duplicated and pans out, then they can work on the how and why.

This is cool stuff.

[JohnnyJ]

3. re:

Dammit!! I told my mother about smoking weed when she was pregnant with me!! :P

[truthisfreedom]

4. can anyone say "nerd?"

8^P

[Minnesota Libra]

6. Read the Bush family history because there is some major stuff............

.....going on there. You do know of course that Bush #41 and Barbara may be related from way back a few generations, right? Plus, 41 and Barbara BOTH have Graves disease, so it's said, and so 43 probably has it as well. Some very interesting family relations there.
I did a real quick google of "Bush family history", might make for some interesting reading.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Bush+family+history&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

[Strong Atheist]

7. "the exact opposite happened to Bush's brain." Lol! nt.

[sofa king]

12. That made me laugh, too!

I've given up trying to figure out who is smart and who is not. I think that future generations will conclude that as a whole, we were as dumb as the cattle who are being slaughtered before us.

[wordpix]

16. don't forget the * brain was pickled in alcohol all those years--he lost

a lot of brain cells then

[JudyM]

27. ... so it's the family of Pickles and Pickle-brain ...

...something smells fermented, whatever it is...

[symbolman]

8. This is why none of these dumbshits

get what the fuck I've been saying..

Oh, wait a minute, guess I REALLY AM lacking in the Social Graces :)

Interestingly enough Einstein didn't speak until he was 6 years old, until one day at the dinner table he looked at his mother and said in perfect english (maybe german), "These potatoes taste like SHIT.."

His mother was ecstatic, throwing her arms around him and exclaiming, "Oh my goodness, we were so worried for all those years, afraid that you were retarded or something.. my gosh, why haven't you spoken since you were a child?!"

Einstein is reported to have shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well.. everything else was fine up until Now.."

:)

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. A child psychologist explained to me

that if 100 is the average IQ, that means that 50% of the people have IQ's lower then 100. Think about the implications of that idea? No wonder so many people can't put one foot in front of another, no less make rational decisions.

[symbolman]

13. Oh absolutely

and by the way, that same bell type curve works for DEMOCRACY TOO, scary ain't it?

If you want to see an organic bell curve just wait for the supermarket to get crowded and look at the crowd placement.. they form a bell shape, and that's one of the reason's they originally put the 10 items or less at the outside of the edges of the checkout lanes..

Life's pretty rich if you know what's really happening around you :)

I'll tell you what the worst experience is, is to have mediocre people tell you that YOU are a genius (it's actually an insult when you think about it) .. but then I try to remember that the Mediocre are doing their very best :)

My 15 month old son isn't doing the "Must say 5 words at minimum" at 15 months so I told the "Einstein" joke to the Pediatrician and he had a good laugh...

Of course that's when my little boy spoke up, saying, "jesus Christ pater, you've told the damn thing wrong almost every single time, your pacing is completely off, Einstein was German, or Swiss, I forget, and of course, this man is only going to run up a higher bill while you stand there telling bad jokes.. so the joke is ON YOU.."

So of course I smacked him, being of Irish stock, plus I'm bigger, so that gives me a pretty good advantage.. until he learns to run or something..

:)

[Jim__]

14. I don't understand the implications that you draw.

An IQ test is designed so that the scores are distributed normally with a mean of 100. All an IQ score of 100 tells you is that a person's intelligence, as measured by an IQ test, is average. An IQ of 100 has no other meaning or implication.

[superconnected]

20. True. It is also true that

there are the same amount of people in the 80's as 120's, 70's as 130's, etc. 17% of the people are under 85.



Sorry the pic keep changing. I was looking for one that has iq and distribution percentage.

[politicat]

21. Not a very well educated psych....

This is covered in statistics 101, which we are all required to take.

Intelligence Quotient is not an average, but are designed to give normally distributed results. The name comes from the original intent of measuring a subject's mental age as a ratio to the subject's physical age. Thus, a ten year old who has a mental age of seven would have an ID of 70; a ten year old who has a mental age of 10 would have an IQ of 100, and a ten year old with a mental age of 13 would have an IQ of 130. More recent tests are quite a bit more sophisticated than just a simple ratio; Internet IQ tests are not even as sophisticated as the early tests.

Since the distribution of IQ is a bell curve, it should look like this:

So, while technically yes, half of all people do have IQ's lower than 100, 95% of people have IQs above 70, which is continued the bottom level of a standard deviation. An IQ of 70 allows a person to function in society. 70% of the population falls into the range of one standard deviation (85-115).

Rational decision making is not entirely a function of IQ, however. It's educational, cultural, social and dogmatic as well.

It's not as simple as an average, unfortunately.

[The Flaming Red Head]

26. If you believe IQ is a reasonable measure of intelligence

I think IQ test are not accurate or reasonable and it depends on who is testing you and what you had for breakfast (if you had anything) and the amount of stress you may be experiencing in your personal life at the moment.

[Ilsa]

11. This was reported Wednesday night on All Things Considered on NPR

and the report is in the journal Nature. I have an autistic child and a late developer. The sutistic child is very good at manipulating his environment and others' behavior. My late developer is good with math and memory problems, but I've never been worried about him. I was a late developer as well, and went through academic growth spurts in high school.

[mainegreen]

15. Define smart kid.

When that can be done, I'll take studies like these more seriously.

[Kailassa]

40. Smart kid, in this case, means a kid with an IQ higher than average.

The tone of your question indicates you already know highIQ and intelligence are not the same thing. ;-)

To elaborate for the sake of others, IQ is a measurement of certain aspects of intelligence, which can only ever be considered a rough estimation. IQ can be thoroughly deceiving if you try to use it as a predicter of an individual's capabilities or potential. Or worse, a low IQ can be a self fulfilling prophesy.

[caligirl]

18. If it replaces that SAT and college board I'm for it.

[Igel]

19. I continue to wait for the other study to drop.

Somebody's going to do it, and if the results aren't 'correct' there'll be hell to pay.

There are different genetic mutations that affect brain development; some are recent, and show pronounced geographic distribution. Some are less recent and have spread widely, showing there's something driving their spread and survival; others are more recent. There are developmental factors in some measures of intelligence and in cortical growth; this implies a large genetic component (although, to be sure, external factors can affect it).

If somebody finally finds a cheap enough means of scanning and monitoring brain growh/function--or a large enough funding source--to do lots of interethnic/interracial comparative brain development work and statistically cut through the environmental contribution ... I shudder to actually write the 'then' part of the utterance.

Just showing there are race-based differences in leg muscle (smooth vs. striated) tissue was enough to get a researcher in hot water.

[depakid]

22. Brains of Washington Post editors

apparently don't develop so well.

Here's their headline:

Brain Development and Intelligence Linked, Study Says

Gee, do ya think?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/29/AR2006032902182.html

And they wonder why they get laughed at.

[newspeak]

24. so, here's a question

The US is leading in the use of ADD drugs and anti-depressants on children. How do these drugs affect a developing brain?

[sarahf]

25. I think

you are dead on Newspeak. Somehow we're becoming a nation of drug pushers in our children without looking at the long term consequences.

[Kailassa]

33. Depression not only inhibits brain development,

it causes the brain too shrink. When going through a bout of deep depression, a person's IQ and memory can be badly affected.

With hyperactivity I have only my own observations to go on, which are that a person learns best when going through alternating times of excitement, to absorb information, and peacefulness, to allow the brain to properly assimilate it.

When ADD or depression are serious ailments they will inhibit learning, and a child may do better on medication. However, if the case is less severe, a healthier diet and more peaceful, secure lifestyle will often have just as good effect.

What I would like to know is why so many kids are affected with ADD, extreme lassitude, depression, anger problems and sleep disorders. It seems to me that society as a whole has become so sick that wellness is now the exception rather than the rule.

[brentspeak]

28. The primary difference between most gifted kids and the other kids:

(as it applies to otherwise normal, healthy kids, not to those kids with things like autism or mental retardation, or the like)

The gifted kids usually have parents who insist to their children that they (the children) are smart, are totally capable, and that can accomplish anything in life they set their minds to.

The average kids? Their parents usually don't offer anything more than the very occasional, token, simple positive reinforcement as the child grows up.

The below-average kids? Their parents are usually the ones who brainwash their kids with constant "you're not as smart as the other kids", or "you'll be a failure in life no matter what." These kids often end up with mental blocks that will artificially prevent them from being able to read, think, and remember details as well as they ordinarily would.

[Kailassa]

32. It can work the other way.

I was always told I was stupid, the few times my parents even spoke to me directly, and teachers I had before my teen years said the same and made fun of me. But I was stubborn and independant, and never doubted that I was smarter than any of them, so I made sure I proved them wrong.

But what you say is true for most kids, and it's taken a lot of work to convince my grand-daughter, who was obviously capable, and her teachers, that she was good at maths and not slow. Now she has her confidence, she is doing very well.

It even works for not-too-bright kids. My oldest son has an IQ of 60, and cannot read or write. But he has always loved scribbling, and has made up his own set of easily scribbled hieroglyphs that he uses to write shopping lists, and manages to do all our grocery shopping on his own. Luckily we live near a supermarket where the staff know him and treat him kindly, and will count out the money for him and give him change honestly.

[DoYouEverWonder]

37. I am glad you were able to believe in yourself

despite the odds.

I was lucky, I was always considered 'smart' and I had a Dad who never put limits on what he thought I could do. I could suggest all sorts of potential careers, everything from being an offset printer to the Tooth Fairy (I swear I had a business plan for this idea) and he always encouraged me.

My son is a dyslexic. He's 13 and he read his first 'book' on his own, all the way through just 2 weeks ago! Fortunately, he loves stories and he listens to books on tape all the time, but to actually want to read something is a major accomplishment.

[Kailassa]

38. Some people hate labels.

But my daughter was so relieved to learn that she was dyslexic. Till then she had thought she was stupid. She had always read, because we're a family of bookworms, but it would take her a month to get thru what I'd read in a night.

In her 20's she went back to night-school and did some courses that involved a lot of reading and essay writing, and you could see the changes in her demeaner as she discovered she could do them and get good grades.

[DoYouEverWonder]

41. We had the same reaction

My son could hold a conversation with an adult by the age of 2. Yet by the end of 1st grade he still couldn't recognize letters. When I took him to get tested he said, 'I want to know what's wrong with me'. I told first there is nothing wrong with you. Second, yes we need to find out what's going on. When the diagnosis came back has dyslexia it was a big relief. Now we knew what was going on and could do something about it. Here we are 6 years later and 100's of hours of tutoring and he can finally make it through a book on his own.

[WhiteTara]

36. sometimes the positive comes from

someone outside the family structure. Your thinking is a bit generalized, but I understand your point. law one of quantum mechanics...the observer affects the experiment.

[symbolman]

29. Did you know that as you age you develop more connections

in the brain known as Dendrites, according to some brain folks this is the basis for "Wisdom", the brain has more access to itself and sheer brainpower, more connections means SMARTER.

What's not so easily measured is the abstractive qualities of the brain and to me that's where the rubber meets the road.. they really can't measure creativity, the same thing..

Most measurements require a form of regurgitation which to me is not really intelligence, a fucking BIRD can do that.. like another poster said, it mattered if you ATE that morning, or got laid, bitched out by the bus driver on the way to the test, etc..

They simply cannot measure what seperates us from the animals, which is mostly mindless ritual..

I've been reading a lot about the Holographic Universe Paradigm, and the potential effect of electons on the surface of the dendrites or other neural connections. They found that they don't really KNOW WHERE electrons are, that if One is affected that the next one or one a billion miles away will show the same effect, this means that potentially ALL electrons are ONE (god, maybe?) and that the universe is nothing but a concensus between Humans, but that down on the neural level, molecularlly that there is nothing but unlimited potentiallity.

Thought may literally create reality if this is true. Always thought that since the brain is layered like an onion and each successive layer is thinner but more powerful, that perhaps some folks are taking advantage of one of the goodies the latest layer has brought us, the ability to broach time and space - hence psychics, etc..

I always thought as a kid that space travel with a squishy human in a can was dumb, that real exploration would take place in the mind. And for some reason, ever since I can remember, I always had this thought, that "everything is the SAME".. could never shake it..

I was reading Kant when I was four years old.. didn't understand a word of it, but I'd marched into the library and demanded the hardest book to read they had, the librarian gave me Kant and I DID read it, then I realised that philosophy required life experience to properly understand and put it back on the shelf.. I haven't read it yet since, saving it for when I'm old enough to actually "get it", but that would require another 50 years or so.. :)

[Porcupine]

30. Likewise Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I kept reading it until I finally was able to track down the obscure damn references by taking college philosphy. Then I realized the author was a dispassionate prick.

Age counts.

[symbolman]

31. LOL

best review I've heard yet.. math guy, bad dad - I worked in two nuthouses (excuse the non PC format) and this guy was a headcase for sure, tho SOME of what he said was important, that it all boiled down to QUALITY and that Quality began with the Individual..

The book could have been a one liner at an EST convention :)

I used to tell those EST people in the 80's that I'd save them 1200 bucks, first I won't let you go to the bathroom until you bend over for me, then the punchline, "What Is, IS.."

Our REAL President Mr Clinton must have taken EST at some point :)

[thefool_wa]

43. This may explain

Why I had a sudden fall off in grades and school interest right about the time I hit puberty (no, it wasn't girls...too much). I was tested with an extremely high IQ in elementary school, but lost interest in school around 8th or 9th grade (yet I still learned that which they were teaching and scored high on tests, I just got lousy grades because I didn't do the school/home work).

This is verrrrry interesting. As far as GW is concerned, it doesn't matter how thick your cerebral cortex is when its pickled by the sauce and disconnected from reality. Dumb is dumb and keeps getting dumber.