Child Prodigy Statistics

Those little “small persons” can also be very smart. Now, although every parent sees his child as an adorable genius, numbers - the great sumerizer of reality - can shed some bright light on the actual presence of extreme brilientness in children. When talking about child prodigies a lot of numerical questions arouse: how many of them are there? What is the probability of having a prodigy child? Who is more likely to become one? Does the boys/girls distribution equal? How many of them are doing great as adults - and so on.

Let's start exploring.

The starting point is that there is no one institution in the world that keeps track of all prodigies out there. Additionally, there is no one short definition of “Prodigy” so a complete factual picture cannot be fully given - only tracked by statistics and gathered information from different sources. 

Before we start - take a look on our List of prodigies

So, how many of them are there?

Dr. Joanne Ruthsatz of Ohio State University was quoted saying that only “One in 5 million children might be a prodigy”. 1 in 5,000,000 - that’s 0.0002% or 200 kids out of 1 billion. As a comparison, the chances of being hit by lightning in the USA is 1/700,000. You’ll be surprised that some are even speculating that a true child prodigy is 1 in 10,000,000. 

What are the most common areas in which prodigy occurs?

According to the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (JRSM) Music is the most common, followed by chess, mathematics and, to a much less extent, visual art. 

What is the probability of having a prodigy child?

Well, this is a more complicated question. Why? Because there are a lot of people who believe a prodigy is not born - but made. If that’s to be the case - than the answer is - it’s up to you. Nevertheless,  as far as hard rock probability, it remains the same: about 1 in 5 million.

 

What’s more?

In Geniuses.Club we strive to collect as much data as possible regarding geniuses and prodigies and make it accessible to all. The data will be updated here and often be provided through our newsletter. Not registered yet? Click here and register.

 

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