Child prodigies  By Sadie McAuley 

Definition of a prodigy a person, especially a child or young person, having extraordinary talent or ability

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart He was born on January 27 1756 in Salzburg.  When he was only three he started learning and writing music, based off the annotations his dad had written in the piano lesson book. Quickly he progressed in his playing, until he was introduced to Daines Barrington. Barrington introduced Mozart to composing. Quickly he started composing. Mozart composed 41 symphonies before he died. 

Akrit Jaswal  Akrit Jaswal first became known when he did surgery at the age of just seven years old. Even though he was not a doctor he was considered a “medical genius”. He performed surgery on an eight-year- old burn victim. By the age of twelve, Jaswal was enrolled in a medical university and at the age of seventeen he was working on getting his Masters in Applied Chemistry. 

Venus and serena williams Many people know the widely known tennis sisters Venus and Serena Williams. When Venus was twelve years old she held an undefeated with a sixty-three game winning streak when she was on the United States Tennis Association’s.  Serena was not too far behind her, when she was ten she held forty- six wins and three losses on the United States Tennis Associations Youth Tour. This talent did not just happen all the sudden. Venus and Serena started intensely training when they were three years old. Their father started making them watch videos and read books to them about tennis. Soon after he started coaching the girls himself. 

Jacob barnett  When Jacob Barnett was two years old he was diagnosed with autism. The doctors told him that they didn’t think that he would be able to speak, read or be independent. Barnett proved all these doctors wrong. He went and was enrolled in Indiana University for his advanced math skills. Currently Barnett is working on his PhD in Quantum Physics. 

Richard Wawro  Richard Wawro, is a prodigy cartoonist. When Wawro was growing up he threw many temper tantrum and would constantly doing obnoxious things like hit one key on the piano for hours. After many months of these actions his parents took him to the hospital. The doctors did many tests on him, to finally come to conclusion that he was severely mentally challenged. Quickly after being diagnosed he started working with a special education teacher. Through his special education teacher, he was introduced to drawing with crayons. Soon after Wawro started filling books with abnormally accurate images of cartoon characters like Yogi Bear. Wawro could never read or write well, and his speech remained very limited. Even though he had many challenges, his art continued to progress. Eventually the media caught the attention of his art work and made a documentary about Wawaro’s story, called “With Eyes Wide Open.”

John Whittenburg  When I was growing up there was a little boy, who was just different than the rest of us. Obviously at three and four years old, must of us did not know why he was different. As we grew up we learned more about John and what is was like to have Autism. John was very bubbly and passionate about math. Johns passion about math, is a very common trait to have if you have autism. Most children with autism are very passionate about one thing, John would go home every day and print out pages upon pages about what we had learned in math that day. John was very good at math, he was probably not at the prodigy level, but his story shows how an autistic child can be very passionate about one thing. 

Definition of autism   a pervasive developmental disorder of children, characterized by impaired communication, excessive      rigidity, and emotional detachment

Autism vs. Prodigies  Even though not every prodigy has autism, many people who are prodigies have traits that link very closely to someone with autism. Normally someone with autism has some sort of underlying disability, which prodigies don’t have. Even though not all prodigies have autism there is a big overlap in traits. Some of those traits are, having an excellent memory, being extremely attentive to detail, and having a very strong passion about one thing. Even though many prodigies do not have autism, it is very interesting to see the comparisons between the two. 

Conclusion  While researching about child prodigies with autism, I learned many things about story telling. I realized that to tell a good story, you must get to the point, show to the compelling parts of the story and be very detailed about the topic. When a story had these traits, it made it easier to read and more interesting to write about. To make my topic interesting in my reports, I decided to look at prodigies from different time periods and different backgrounds. I think by choosing to portray my stories this way, it showed the many ways you can be a prodigy. Through the research process I have filled my research gaps along the way. One of my biggest research holes to fill was finding different types of prodigies. Thankfully after reading multiple sources I found great articles about different types of prodigies. During my research, I have now come to conclusion on what makes a child prodigy is defined as. Also, I have a better understanding of who qualifies to be a child prodigy. Overall this project opined my eyes, to the different types of people that are all around my age.  

Bibliography http://www.biography.com/people/wolfgang-mozart-9417115 http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/16/tennis/richard-williams-venus-serena-tennis/ http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/little-geniuses-on-the-oprah-show https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-science-behind-child-prodigies http://www.dictionary.com/browse/autism?s=t