2011年4月19日星期二

愛因斯坦遊港不知得諾獎 曾被人誤以為讀書成績不理想 Einstein Syndrome (Comments: likely to be a myth to comfort people)

愛因斯坦曾在1922年11月9日及1923年1月5日來港,兩次均只逗留一天,到過淺水灣和山頂。1922年他首次來港,正值宣布他獲頒諾貝爾物理學獎,當時身在香港的他卻懵然不知。



據當年報紙The Hong Kong Telegraph報道,愛因斯坦來港時說到,香港的景色令他想起另一家鄉瑞士,他深深被風景吸引。

他當時又稱,最希望能到香港大學授課,可惜未能圓夢,當時他已認為香港大學會有美好將來,亦對由英國人教授中國人感興趣。

愛因斯坦讀書成績優秀,當年在瑞士修讀高中的他,成績表上很多科目均取得6分,是最好的分數,但由於在德國的評分準則,6分是最低分的分數,故這名在德國出生的偉大科學家曾被人誤以為讀書成績不理想。

Although Einstein had early speech difficulties, he was a top student in elementary school.

Einstein Syndrome is a term Thomas Sowell used to describe exceptionally bright people (aka: savants) with a slow development of speech (unlikely to have conversations before age four).
Commonalities:
  • Delayed speech development
  • Usually boys
  • Highly educated parents
  • Musically gifted (families)
  • Puzzle solving abilities
  • Lagging social development
  • Delayed toilet training

The main thesis of the book is that late talkers are often inaccurately categorized as having an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and that a small subset of late talkers are actually highly intelligent children with common characteristics concentrated in music and/or memory and/or math. It is difficult if not impossible to accurately assess the cognitive skills of a child who is nonverbal or minimally verbal if the testing is verbally weighted, which it typically is. The book also addresses children with strong personalities resisting testing and scoring well below their capabilities. The author's own son who grew up to become a programmer, was falsely thought of as retarded because of his talking despite evidence of excellent memory and no dramatic impairment in daily functioning. The book details a series of high achieving scientists and musicians all of whom spoke late and displayed "autistic like" features (long attention span at young age, strong will, ability to play alone, delayed language/social skills) which not rarely are seen in children with extremely high intelligence.


Einstein Syndrome is likely to be a myth for comforting people with true deficits.

It is likely that Einstein has a superior non-verbal or visual-spatial intelligence (including symbolic intelligence) and superior attentional functioning relative to average verbal abilities with reference to the general population. He is unlikely to fall into Austistic Spectrum Disorder or Asperger's Syndrome, both of which are associated with many neurocognitive deficits, affecting especially their socializing skills. No report so far has mentioned Einstein had social or communication difficulties. Rather, he was likely to have preference in using his personal strengths, which were visuospatial/symbolic operations, and absorbed into his thoughts with highly focused attention and did not bother to talk. Without much pratice, it is understandable his early language development would have been postponed, but his language machinery, i.e. brain wiring of his language centres, was essentially normal, given enough educational opportunities, his language development would have caught up soon as proven later.

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