Child Prodigy;Gifted Child, Weird or Wiz?

A child someone under the age of 13, who excels in one or more area of skill at a level that considers as an adult level in a certain field, are called child prodigy, or some call them “wonder child” or “genius”. Music, Math, arts, humanities and sports like chess, golf, or any competition the child prodigy excels. If the child as young as 2 years old to 13 years old, and shows adult-level skills, in his field of knowledge and excels, the child is considered a prodigy in that field. A wiz person are considered exceptionally skilled or gifted in their choice of field.

1) Mathematics Child prodigy

William James Sidis, a child prodigy in Mathematics and he is a linguistic, and at the age of eleven, he was accepted to attend Harvard University.

March Tian Boedihardjo was born in the year 1998, a child prodigy of Chinese-Indonesian descendant, born in Hong Kong with family roots from Anxi and Fujian, but was raised in United Kingdom in 2005.  At the age of 9 year-old and 3 months, March Boendihardjo, passed the A-level exams in Britain, gaining all A’s in mathematics, B statistics and gained 8 GCSEs, which he made it at the same time as his A-levels.

Horatio Boedihardjo, elder brother of March Tian,also a child prodigy from Hong Kong, was accepted at Oxford DPhil Program in 2008 and became the youngest college student of the university. At 17 years old, he won a PhD place in Oxford University.

Aaran Fernandez, Math child prodigy

Aaran Fernandez, the youngest graduate of Cambridge at age of 14, a math prodigy and broke the records when he passed the GCSE and glided through A-level math.

Raul Chavez Sarmiento

Raul Chavez Sarmiento was born October 24,1997, is a Peruvian mathematics child prodigy. At the age of 11 winning bronze medal at the 2009 International Mathematical Olympiad, the second youngest medalist in IMO history.

Terence Tao

Terence Tao was born in 1975, a math child prodigy won the bronze medal in 1986 at the age of 10 years old, and in 2010 he won silver medal at IMO.

Sufiah Yusuf

Sufiah Yusof  born in 1984 from Malaysia is a math child prodigy, made headlines in 1997 when she was accepted into St Hilda’s College, Oxford to study mathematics. But in 2001 she ran away from her Oxford flat after her final exams for the academic year. After two week she was found working as a waitress, and married a trainee lawyer but the marriage ended up for 13 months only. In 2008 she was found by an undercover reporter for the News of the World, advertising as a prostitute, under the alias of  Shipa Lee, but regret her activities. She now works as a Social Worker.

2) Mental Calculators

John von Neumann

John von Neumann, born December 28, 1903, was a Hungarian-American mathematician and mental calculator child prodigy. He can speak many languages and could memorized at age 6, and could exchanged jokes in classical Greek and can memorize telephone directories content.

Privanshi Somani

Priyanshi Somani, boen November 16 1998 is a mental calculator (person with prodigious ability in some area of multiplying or factoring  large numbers. Some rare mental calculators are autistic savants or savant syndrome.

Lawrence Kim Peek, Savant Mental Calculator

Lawrence Kim Peek is an American savant, and known as the megasavant, he had a photographic or eidetic memory but he have difficulties on social activities, possibly a result from a developmental disability related to congenital brain abnormalities. He died of hear attack on December 19, 2009.

Alexis Lemaire

Alexis Lemaire, a French child prodigy,  holds the most famous mental-calculation world record. He had broken the record of finding the 13th root of a 200 digit number. He is now 27 years old and a medical student.

3) Physics Child Prodigy

Moshe Kai Cavalin

Moshi Kai Cavalin was born in 1995, and at age eleven, he earned an Associate degree from a two-year community college with a 4.0 GPA. He was 8 years old when he began at taking up his college class and after 3 years he graduated from the community college, and he was 12 years old. Currently he attends the UCLA and plan to get a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics.

Mikaela Irene Fudolig

Mikaela Irene Fudolig is a child prodigy from the Philippines, graduated at the University of the Philippines as a Summa Cum Laude in B.S. Physics, with general average of 1.099 at the age of 16. She was eleven when she entered college under an experiment program to test the impact of gifted children, entering a university on their emotional and social development.

Thatagat Avatar Tulsi

Thatagat Avatar Tulsi, born in 1987, and at 10 yrs old he received an undergraduate degree, and obtained a Ph.D at 21, and became the youngest professor at IIT B at age 22. He is now a and Indian Physicist (a scientists who studies or practice Physics).

Kim Ung-Yong, attended University at the age of 4, Ph.D at the age of 15, and was named the highest IQ. This genius boy was born in 1962 from Korea, and recognized by Guinness Book of World Records as having the highest IQ. He was age 4 when he was able to read Korean, Japanese, German and English. And at the age of 3 to 6, Kim was a guest student of Physics at the Hanyang University, and at the age of 7, he was invited by the NASA in America, and had his Ph.D in Physics at age 15 in Colorado State University. In 2007 he serves the Chungbuk National University.

4) Chemistry Child Prodigy

Ainan Celeste Cawley

Ainan Celeste Cawley, born 1999, passed Chemistry O Level at the age of 7 years and 1 month old. Ainan studied Chemistry at tertiary level at a Polytechnic university from 8 years and 4 months old.

5) Biology Child Prodigy

Colin Carlson

Colin Carlson was 13 years old when he studied at the University of Connecticut, taking up a bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and other environmental studies. He started reading between two or three years old, and wanted to have a degree in Environmental Law, for a career in conservation science.

6) Medicine Child Prodigy

Akrit Jaswal

Akrit Jaswal: The Indian youngest surgeon at the age of 7, and became famous as ” The world’s smartest boy”. His IQ is 146 and considered smartest person in his age in India with more than a billion population. He is now studying for science degree at Chandigarh College and the youngest student accepted in an Indian university. In the year 2000, he performed a surgery of an 8-year old girl, burnt patient when he freed her fingers and was able to use it again. Akrit was only 7 at that time.

Ambati Balamurai

Balamuri “Doogie Howser” Ambati, was born July 29,1977, became the world’s youngest doctor in the year 1995 at the age of 17 years old. At the age of 13, Ambati graduated from New York University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine at age 17. He completed an Ophthalmology residency at Harvard University, where he developed strategies to reverse corneal angiogenesis (Physiological process involving the growth of new blood vessels from the pre-existing vessels. He is now 33 years old.

Sho Yano

Sho Yano, born 1991, is an Asian-American child prodigy with an estimated IQ of 200. His father is a Japanese national, Katsura and Korean mother Kyung, reported that Yano started reading at age 2, writing at age 3, playing classical music on the piano at age 4 and composing songs at age 5. At age 12, he graduated at the Loyola University Chicago as a Summa Cum Laude student and entered the Pritzker School of Medicine, at the University of Chicago in the Medical Science Training Program (MTSP), which is designed for those who wants to study and earn an MD and Ph.D.

7) Engineering child prodigy

Alia Sabur

Alia Sabur was born on February 22, 1989 in New York City. Alia is an American Materials Scientist (interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering).

Mechanical Engineering child prodigy

Karl Friedrich Benz

Karl Friedrich Benz, started scientifically oriented Lyzeum at age 9, and went to study at the Poly-Technical University, and passed the entrance exam of Mechanical Engineering, at age 15 at the University of Karlsruhe and graduated at the age of 19. Karl Friedrich Benz, was the founder and manufacturer of Mercedes Benz.

9) Humanities Child Prodigy

Michael Kevin Kearney

Michael Kevin Kearney, born January 18,1984 in Honolulu, Hawaii, is a child prodigy known for setting several world records and teaching college at age 17. He attended a homeschool program, since he was diagnosed with ADHD syndrome (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and his parents declined to use the medicated drug, Ritalin. His younger sister, Maeghan, is also a child prodigy. At the age of 4, Michael was given a multiple choice diagnostic tests for the Johns Hopkins precocious math program, without having reviewed or studied for the exam. He achieved perfect score, and at age 6 he graduated at the San Marin High School in Novato, California in 1990. At age 8, Michael graduated with an Associate of Science in Geology at Santa Rosa Junior College in Sonoma County, California, and at the age of 10, he received a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology (study of humanity) from the University of South Alabama. He won $ 1Million in a game show Who want’s to be a Millionaire and was also listed in the Guinness Book of World’s Record as the youngest graduate at 10.

Alexander Faludy

Alexander Faludy,  born in 1983, was a former child prodigy, became the youngest undergraduate at the University of Cambridge since 1773. He passed the English Literature GCSE at age 9 and passed an A-Level at the age of 11 despite  of having a severe dyslexia ( a learning disability that impairs a person’s fluency or accuracy in being able to read, spell and speak). At age 15 and 7 months, he joined Peterhouse, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, and became the youngest undergraduate. TES made a report that Alexander Faludy could not barely write his name but can expound at length on the rationalist argument for God, in 1999.

Gregory Smith

Gregory Smith was born in 1990, and could read at the age of 2 and enrolled in a university at age 10. At his young age he traveled around the world as a peace and child’s right activist. He is the founder of the International Youth Advocates, an organization promoting peace principles and understanding among the youth all over the world. He was nominated for a Novel Peace prize at age 12, and was nominated four times for Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian and advocacy efforts. He has met former US President Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev and spoke in front of the UN delegates.

10) Humane Letters, Teachings and Evangelism

Aman Rehman

Aman Rehman ,  from Dehradun in the North Indian State of Uttarakhandan, is an 8 year-old boy, specializing in animation for films and began teaching his skills to adults. Rehman is aspiring to win a Guinness Book of World Records as the “Young Achiever” award. Rehman is called the “Little Bill Gates”, and became famous all over the state after learning his trade as a toddler. He learned computer at young age and made more than 1000 animated movies. The College of Interactive Arts recognized his computer skills and gave him scholarship. He received a laptop and 100,000 Rupees ($2,073) from the state government.

11) Law and Philosophy child prodigy

Saul Kripke

Saul Aaron Kripke, a Rabbi’s son, was born in New York and raised in Omaha in 1940. In his 4th grade he discovered algebra, and by the end of grammar school, he mastered Geometry and calculus and taken up Philosophy. Then he was invited to teach by the Math Department at Harvard University, but his mother declined and wants him to finish high school and go to college like any ordinary child. But he still chose Harvard for his college education, and was awarded the Schock Prize, Phylosophy’s equivalent of the Nobel. He is considered world’s greatest living philosopher of modern days.

Kathleen Holtz

Kathleen Holtz, a California lawyer who passed the California State Bar Examination in 2007 and became the youngest lawyer, at age 18 of the state. At the age of 10, Holtz studied at the California State L.A.  At age 15, Holtz entered UCLA School of Law.

12) Linguistic and Translation

Vo Thi Ngoc Diem (Wendy Vo)

Vo Thi Ngoc Diem, or much known as Wendy Vo, born in Charlotte,North Carolina on July 20, 1999, learned music at age four and at the age of five, she can compose her own music. Wendy Vo can speak 11 languages like; English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, French, Japanese, and Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese, and of course her mother language Vietnamese.

Jean-Francois Champollion

Jean-Francois Champollion, could speak various languages before his age ten. By age 16, he can speak dozen languages, and his only teacher was his brother, who himself was a linguistic prodigy. Jean-Francois Champollion’s work, was in deciphering Egyptian Hieroglyphics.

13) Singer Child Prodigy

Cleopatra Stratan

Cleopatra Stratan, a 3 year-old singer from Moldova who earns 1000 Euro per song, and the youngest ever to score success in her commercial and the youngest performer highest paid singer. She was born on October 6,2002 in Chinsinau, Moldova, daughter of Pavel Strata, a Moldovan-Romanian singer.

Jacqueline Marie Evancho

Jacqueline Marie Evancho born April 9,2000, is an American crossover lyric soprano in the 5th season of America’s Got Talent, and performed on stage with producer, David Foster.

Michael Jackson (Jackson 5)

The Jackson brothers started their singing careers earlier, and was joined by younger brother Michael at age 5, and formed the group Jackson 5. Michael’s dancing ability, singing and performing surpassed his older brothers and made the group famous. At age 11, he became the lead singer of the group and went solo performer at age 13. Michael Jackson was a legend until his untimely death.

14) Musical Instruments

Emily Bear

Emily Bear was born in August 30,2001, an American child prodigy pianist and composer from Illinois. Her grandmother noticed her talent in piano when Emily was age 2. She appeared at the Ellen DeGeneres Show, played at the White House for President George W. Bush, when she was 6 years old. She played a complete Mozart Concierto only from memory, with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra.

Aimi Kobayashi

Aimi Kobayashi, born on September 23,1995 and lives in Ube, Yamaguchi Perfecture, Japan unti year 2007 and moved to Tokyo and started to play the piano at age 3. She is a classical pianist child prodigy, and started to play with orchestra at age 7, and has been under the guardianship of Yuko Ninomiya since she was 8 years old, and won the Yamaguchi Perfecture “Glory Culture Prize” three times. The American Association for Development of the Gifted and Talented (AADGT), a New York based non-profit organization has been supporting and helping Aimi Kobayashi for many years.

Tristan “Tum-Tum” Mendoza

Thristan “Tum-Tum” Mendoza, diagnosed with autism at age two and six months, but with inborn perfect pitch, he learned how to play the “marimba” at age 5. Tum-Tum was born in 1989 in Quezon City, Philippines, and now he is internationally known as “marimba virtouso”. He was not 6th grader in the regular curriculum at a prestigious school, the O.B. Montessory Center. He excel in the Japanese Kumon method of mathematics, but had to stop to shift to other subjects, because he was ahead of his classmates in his math abilities.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, started playing the music at the age of 3, and first started with hapsichord and could read and play music by age 5.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven, was deeply influenced by Mozart’s work, and became acquainted when he was teenager, and was thought to perform at Mozart’s Operas while playing in the court of orchestra at Bonn and studied older compositions. (image by: Mozart circa 1780 by Johann Nepomuk dela Croce)

Akim Camara

Akim Camara born October 27,2001 in Berlin,Marzahn is a child prodigy violinist, started playing violin at age 2, although could talk fluently and speak in toddler gibberish, but could able to remember music on how he heard and could named all the orchestral instruments. Akim a biracial child (his father is an African and mother is German), was named “The Micracle child from Berlin”, and performed already on televisions. (Wikipedia)

Richie Sambora, Bon Jovi’s Guitarist

Richie Sambora started playing music at age 3, using different kinds of musical instruments, and stared playing the guitar at age 12. He is the famous guitarist of Bon Jovi.

15) Poetry

Lucrecia Maria Davidson

Lucresia Maria Davidson, started to write poetry in an early age, and at age 11, she was known for her great poetry. But her creation and love for poems, lasted only for five years, because of her death by tuberculosis. But she left a remarkable history as a child prodigy in the art of poetry.

William Cullen Bryant, another child prodigy in the art of poetry at the age of 13.

16) Arts

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, or much known as Pablo Picasso, born in October 25, 1881 and died in April 8,1973, was a Spanish painter, draftsman and sculptor, who had lived his adulthood in France. He is best known as the co-founder of The Cubist movement, people or works that are experimental or innovative particularly to arts, culture and politics (avant-garde movement). He created “The Picador” at age 8 and began with his exhibits at age 15. He was also involved in science and math of art.

Kieron Wiliamson

Kieron Williamson, at age 7 his paintings at home in Holt, Norfolk, and his paintings costs $1,449 USD and more than 680 people on a waiting list, who wants to buy his paintings. His 2nd exhibits were sld out in only 14 minutes.

Arkiane Kramanik, Artist Child Prodigy

Arkiane Kramanik, was born July 9,1994, an American Poet and Artistic child prodigy, and sold her paintings worth $3 Million USD at age 7.

Marla Olmstead Abstract Painter child prodigy

Marla Olmstead was born in 2000 in New York, a child prodigy in abstract paintings. The parents noted that she began painting, before her second birthday in 2002, and at age 4, Marla attracted the attentions of media

17) Movies and Television

Marvin Frederick Hamlisch

Marvin Frederick Hamlisch was born on June 2, 1944, an American composer, born in New York City to a Viennese Jewish parents. At age 5 , he began mimicking music he heard from the radio and piano. Before he turned 7, he was accepted at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division. Marvin Hamlisch, became famous for his composition of many motion picture’s theme, that includes Oscar Winning score and song for “The Way We Were”, and his adaptation of Scott Joplin’s music for “The Sting”, and won the 3rd Oscar award.

Elaina Smith, Youngest Agony Aunt at age 7

Elaina Smith, the youngest “Agony Aunt” at age 7, have her regular program in a local radio station. Her job, giving advices to her listeners, like of being dumped by boyfriends, being left by husbands for another woman, and problems of the heart. She have her weekly slot and now advices thousands of adult listeners. One caller asked her how to win back her man, Elaina advised her, “He is not worth the heartache you are dealing now. Life is too short to be upset with a boy”.

18) Sports

Tiger Woods

Edrick Tont “Tiger” Woods, born December 30, 1975 is an American professional golfer, and a child prodigy introduced to golf before the age of 2 by his father. Also a biracial child of Earl Woods, a black American retired lieutenant colonel and Vietnam War veteran, and mother, Kutilda Woods from Thailand. Tiger Woods won the Underage 10 Section of the Drive, Pitch and Putt competition held at the Navy Golf Course in Cypress, California.

Michelle Wei was born in Honolulu, Hawaii from a Korean descent,  is an American professional golfer, and became the youngest  player to qualify for USGA amateur championship at age 10.

Wayne Douglas Gretzky

Wayne Douglas Gretzky was born in January 6, 1961, and was known the “classic prodigy” whose extraordinary  skills. At the age of 6, he started playing for a team of 10 years old, and was always played at a level far above his peers through his minor hockey years. His father, Tony from Belarus and mother Mary, from Ukraine, migrated to Canada, and established their 25-acre farm, where Gretzky, age 2 years and 10 months old started to learn ice skating. He was named “The Great One” and became the best player in the history of the National Hockey League (NHL). He is now retired as professional ice hockey player and ice hockey coach.

Fu Ming Xia, Child prodigy Diver, China

Fu Ming Xia, born August 16,1978 in Wuhan, Hebei, China, and became the top female diver and multiple Olympic Gold medalist and world champion. At age 5, she started gymnastic, but shifted to diving. At age 9 she started training in Beijing, coached by Jian Li You. At age 12, she become the youngest world champion ever in any sport. And at age 13, she won the 10-meter platform gold and was named youngest Olympic champion. She was 17 years old when she won both 10-meter platform gold and 3-meter springboard gold in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, and became the Olympics champion.

19) Games

Cho Hunhyun, Go Player child prodigy

Cho Hunhyun became a professional Go player in 1962 in China when he was 9 years old. And was named Go player child prodigy and as champion in an early age.

Fabiano Luigi Caruana, Chess child prodigy player

Faviano Luigi Caruana, the youngest Grandmaster and chess player at age 14, who have dual citizenship of Italy and US. In April 2009, FIDE list his ELO rating of 2649, making him the world’s highest ranked player before he was 18.

Serjey Karkajin, Chess Grandmaster at age 12

Serjey Karjakin, won the title of Chess Grandmaster at age 12, he was born and raised in Ukraine, and the record breaking competition was in 2002.

Willie Mosconi , Professional Billiard player at age 6

William Joseph “Willie” Mosconi, also called, “Mr Pocket Billiards”, was an American professional billiard player at age 6, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1919, Mosconi was arranged to have an exhibition match with the reigning Billiard Champion, Ralph Greenleaf, but lose the match. At age 11. Mosconi was a juvenile straight pool champion and holds the trick shots exhibitions. And in 1957 he won the BCA World Championship of pool an unmatched fifteen times.

Ronald Antonio “Ronnie” O’Sullivan, Snooker child prodigy

Ronaldo Antonio O’Sullivan or much known as Ronnie O’Sullivan, is an English professional snooker player, and was named “The Rocket”, because of his rapid style of playing. He was age 10 when he first broke the 117 scores. He was 15 when he scored 147 maximum and age 17 when he won the 1993 UK Championship.

20) Jonathan Malabanan, Gifted Child

Jonathan Malabanan, born on November 16, 1991, was named child prodigy because of high IQ. At 10 months old, he already know letters, shapes, numbers and colors. And at 1 year old, he could read stories from his children’s book and road signs, whenever he travels with his parents. At age 3, the Stanford Binet scored his IQ 136. And at the age of 16, he graduated from UCLA with a degree in Cognitive Science and studied medicine to become a Pediatrician. In 2009, he was awarded a certificate as the young ambassador by the Davidson Institute for Talent development at Reno,Nevada.

Angela and Mikaela Guerrero, Gifted Child

Angela and Mikaela Guerrero both sisters, have high IQ and considered as child prodigy. Angela Guerrero is 15 years old and a 3rd year undergraduate student, BS Chemistry Minor Music, at Cal State LA in an Early Entrance program for the Highly Gifted, prior to enrolling at CSULA. She was a former student of Gretchen Whitney High School, when she was Grade 7 to Grade 9, and became a consistent honor student with 4.0 grade point average (GPA).

Mikaela Guerrero, the younger sister of Angela, was found to be exceptional gifted, with her IQ of 167, and was assessed by Dr. Sheila Vaughan of the Mirman School. Mikaela, 8 year old child prodigy was also a gifted writer and excellent artist.

21) Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland on August 9,1896. His father was a professor of Literature and History, and his mother Rebecca Jackson, was an intelligent and energetic. Jean find his mother sometimes neurotic that made him interested in Psychology, but far from Pathology. He was age 10, when he first published his first “paper” and one page account of an albino sparrow.