Doubt cast on biology of giftedness.Doubt cast on biology of giftedness Several years ago, a study linked extreme academic giftedness in 12- and 13-year-olds to two biological traits: left-handedness and allergies Allergies Definition Allergies are abnormal reactions of the immune system that occur in response to otherwise harmless substances. Description Allergies are among the most common of medical disorders. . The researchers suggested that fetal overexposure overexposure too long an exposure time or too high a milliamperage causing too black a picture, loss of detail and some anomalies of translucency. or sensitivity to the male hormone testosterone testosterone (tĕstŏs`tərōn), principal androgen, or male sex hormone. One of the group of compounds known as anabolic steroids, testosterone is secreted by the testes (see testis) but is also synthesized in small quantities in the might foster these biological traits while contributing to the much higher incidence of mathematical and verbal precocity precocity /pre·coc·i·ty/ (-kos´it-e) unusually early development of mental or physical traits.preco´cious sexual precocity precocious puberty. in boys compared with girls (SN: 12/6/86, p.357). But another study now reveals that gifted 12-year-olds show no more tendency toward left-handedness and allergies than their nongifted but academically successful peers. Jennifer Wiley and David Goldstein David Goldstein is a radio talk show host and blogger in Seattle, Washington. He hosts "The David Goldstein Show" on Saturdays and Sundays on 710 KIRO. Goldstein first gained notoriety in 2003 for Initiative 831, which would have officially proclaimed Washington State political of Duke (University in Durham, N.C., studied 96 gifted seventh-graders (69 boys and 27 girls) who scored at least 700 on the mathematics section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test ap·ti·tude test n. An occupation-oriented test for evaluating intelligence, achievement, and interest. (SAT) or at least 630 on the verbal section. They compared these youngsters with two age-matched groups that scored much lower on the SAT (540 or less on each section) but scored high on school achievement tests. One comparison group consisted of 96 randomly selected students, the other of 96 students whose gender distribution matched that of the gifted group. Ten percent of the students in each group were left-handed. Among boys only, the rate of left-handedness was about 16 percent in each group. Surveys have suggested that 15 percent of children and teenagers in the general population are left-handed, although persistent lefties represent only about 7 percent of adults, Wiley and Goldstein say. One-third of both the gifted and comparison students had allergies or asthma. The implication of this finding remains unclear since studies have not clearly documented the overall population rate of allergies, the scientists point out. As to why gifted boys seem to outnumber out·num·ber tr.v. out·num·bered, out·num·ber·ing, out·num·bers To exceed the number of; be more numerous than. outnumber Verb to exceed in number: gifted girls, Wiley and Goldstein maintain that boys perform better on time-limited tests such as the SAT. They point to a study by other researchers indicating that academically successful girls do as well as boys on untimed SATs. Girls' time-dependent test performance likely results from as-yet-unspecified family and school influences, Wiley and Goldstein maintain. |
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