Stephen Black quotes from Mrazik and Dombrowski (2000), "The neurobiological foundations of giftedness": >Much has been said about Einstein's aberrant development. >He did not learn to talk until the age of 3 and his speech >was not fluent until approximately age 10. He was not >viewed as demonstrating early precocious behavior and, >in fact, much has been made of his Greek teacher's >comments that Einstein would not amount to anything".
As Stephen writes, >I recall that this view that Einstein struggled intellectually >early in life has been challenged while also noting that >Despite a list of something around 100 references, >these statements are not referenced One is left wondering why the referees (and editor) did not insist that references be given for such assertions. As K.A. Adelman and H. S, Adelman state in their article "Rodin, Patton, Edison, Wilson, Einstein : Were They Really Learning Disabled?" (1987), in the Journal of Learning Disabilities: "Once a posthumous diagnosis has been suggested, it often takes on life of its own. Many people accept it as gospel, never checking the sources or the facts. A cursory review shows that many texts do not cite any sources when presenting such statements." http://ldx.sagepub.com/content/20/5/270.full.pdf I was busily digging up original sources when I checked my own files and found two articles that supply refutations of just about all the erroneous contentions about Einstein's alleged childhood difficulties in learning. The first is on the Albert Einstein Archives website: Einstein's Alleged Handicaps: The Legend of the Dull-Witted Child Who Grew Up to Be a Genius http://www.albert-einstein.org/.index11.html The second is from the New York Times, but despite being by a journalist :-) it is reliable because he is quoting John Stachel, founding editor of the Albert Einstein Collected Papers: "Einstein Revealed as Brilliant in Youth" http://tinyurl.com/5rj8qym The statement by Mrazik and Dombrowski about Einstein not learning to talk until the age of 3 is worth looking at more closely. The source is a letter Einstein wrote to someone called Sybille Blinhoff in 1954: "It is true that my parents were worried because I began to speak relatively late, so much so that they consulted a doctor. I can't say how old I was then, certainly not less than three." But how reliable are the reminiscences of someone age 75? There is no reason to doubt that he was rather late in talking, but his sister Maja wrote a sketch of his life (probably around 1924) in which she reports that when he was told of her birth (when Einstein was two-and-a-half) he asked, apparently expecting her to be a toy: "Yes, but where are its wheels." This recollection presumably came from her parents, but seems to be at a higher level of reliability than the second-hand recollections of a 75-year-old. More direct evidence comes from a letter written by his maternal grandmother when he was two years and three months old in which she wrote: "We talk again and again of his [Albert's] droll ideas." I find it difficult to see how this can refer to anything other than something spoken by the infant Einstein. What of Mrazik and Dombrowski's statement that Einstein's speech was not fluent until he was about 10 years old? The only source I have been able to find is the biography by Philipp Frank, a friend and colleague, published in 1948: "Even when Albert was nine years old and in the highest grade of the elementary school, he still lacked fluency of speech, and everything he said was expressed only after thorough consideration and reflection." Presumably this was based on something Einstein told Frank, again with all the unreliability of a memory recalled some 40 years later. In any case, it does not mean that Einstein had speech problems in the way that Mrazik and Dombrowski's words imply. A better idea of Einstein's early childhood accomplishments is given in the letter his mother wrote to her sister when he was seven years old: "Yesterday Albert got his grades, once again he was ranked first, he got a splendid report card." (Letter, 1 August 1866) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org --------------------------------------- From: sbl...@ubishops.ca Subject: Einstein's aberrant development Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2011 11:14:03 -0400 I've just been reading a new review paper by Mrazik and Dombrowsi in which they resurrect an old theory of Geschwind that gifted individuals may have had a prenatal testosterone boost. There's not a lot of evidence for this but they do what they can with what's available. Early on, they mention Da Vinci, Freud, Einstein, and Picasso as great men with, they claim, pattterns of aberrant psychological functioning. About Einstein, they say: "Perhaps Albert Einstein represents the best example of how atypical brain functioning may influence giftedness. Much has been said about Einstein's aberrant development. He did not learn to talk until the age of 3 and his speech was not fluent until approximately age 10. He was not viewed as demonstrating early precocious behavior and, in fact, much has been made of his Greek teacher's comments that Einstein would not amount to anything". (Despite a list of something around 100 references, these statements are not referenced). I recall that this view that Einstein struggled intellectually early in life has been challenged, although often cited as inspiration for people with learning disabilities. Yet no less that the Learning Disabilities Association of Illinois has a nice summary of a paper by Marlin (2000) which disputes this claim. [see http://www.ldail.org/einstei.cfm ] Perhaps if we had someone on this list familiar with the issue who could comment... Stephen Mrazik, M., and Dombrowski, S. (2010). The neurobiological foundations of giftedness. Roeper Review, 32, 224-234. -------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca ------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=9405 or send a blank email to leave-9405-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
