Talk:Einstein syndrome
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Other famous late-talkers are mentioned in Sowell's book The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late (2001). Not mentioned by Sowell are Alessandro Volta, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Eric Bond Hutton, all of whom also fit the description of somebody with this syndrome.
Jake Rilko 19:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I have just been reading about Charles I (of Great Britain and Ireland), who did not learn to talk till he was about five years old. According to Charles Carlton's Charles I: The Personal Monarch (2nd edition, 1995):
- one observer remembered he was "very wilful, somewhat inclining to perverseness of disposition", while another recalled that, "If anyone crossed him he would hardly be stilled, crawling about on all fours in a most unseemly manner."
That, I should add, was when he was a child. Yet that stubborn streak was evident throughout his life, and is characteristic of what Thomas Sowell has chosen to call Einstein Syndrome.
Jake Rilko 19:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
It seems that Edison, too, was a late-talker. According to an online biographical sketch by one Gerald Beals (at www.thomasedison.com/biog.htm), he
- did not learn to talk until he was almost four years of age. Immediately thereafter, he began pleading with every adult he met to explain the workings of just about everything he encountered. If they said they didn't know, he would look them straight in the eye with his deeply set and vibrant blue-green eyes and ask them "Why?"
- [...]
- At age seven — after spending 12 weeks in a noisy one-room schoolhouse with 38 other students of all ages — Tom's overworked and short[-]tempered teacher finally lost his patience with the child's persistent questioning and seemingly self[-]centered behavior. Noting that Tom's forehead was unusually broad and his head was considerably larger than average, he made no secret of his belief that the hyperactive youngster's brains were "addled" or scrambled.
- If modern psychology had existed back then, Tom would have probably been deemed a victim of ADHD (attention[-]deficit hyperactivity disorder) and proscribed [sic] a hefty dose of the "miracle drug" Ritalin.
All of which will sound very familiar to anybody who has read The Einstein Syndrome, including the comment about Ritalin, unfortunately.
Jake Rilko 18:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
