Precocity paradox
This article by Dr Piotr Wozniak is part of SuperMemo Guru series on memory, learning, creativity, and problem solving.
Prolonged development
The precocity paradox says that children who peak early may also stagnate early. Of the entire living world, humans exhibit the longest time to maturity in brain development. In healthy individuals, the longer the brain growth, the better the ultimate outcome.
The paradox results in the harmful illusion that accelerated development in childhood can lead to better long-term outcomes. This illusion is made more pronounced by the fact that developmental delays are also often a result of neurophysiological problems.
Late cortical peak
In a healthy course of the brain growth, we may see extended critical periods, extended neurogenesis, extended maturation of white matter, extended childhood amnesia, delays in speech, delays in numeracy, delays in reading, delays in writing, delays in musical ability, dramatically delayed peak of cortical thickness (perhaps even beyond 12 years of life), etc. All those benchmarks may wrongly be used as a reason for worry. Slow cortical trajectory correlates with ADHD diagnosis.
In terms of cortical development, we may want to build up as much of the healthy neuronal material to work with only to chisel out the detail much later in life (through regressive events such as pruning and apoptosis, and consolidating processes such as myelination, stabilization, etc.). Secondly, exclusive focus on semantic learning may determine the brain architecture due to non-interference in the conceptualization process (see: Dual-process model of white matter development).
The course of cortical growth, neurogenesis, myelination, stabilization, synaptic pruning, axon pruning and apoptosis can be explained with a wood carving metaphor:
Coercive acceleration
All forms developmental acceleration that rely on stress, result in premature crystallization of brain functionality. Maternal separation is an example source of powerful chronic stress that results in premature precocity, which leads to the myth that daycare is beneficial for little children.
All forms of coercive learning are particularly harmful at the times of the rapid brain growth. Coercive learning may be a result of attempts to bring all children up to inappropriately set benchmarks. For example, the well-documented earlier development of girls in preschool may lead to higher pressure on boys to measure up in performance. This in turn may lead to more behavioral problems or even a pharmacological intervention.
In 2024, researchers confirmed that early life adversity accelerates the brain development. This acceleration may result in cognitive impairments or mental health issues later in life.
Developmental diagnostics
It is relatively easy to see if developmental delays are a result of a neuropathology, or a sign of a healthy brain growth. In healthy development, early cognitive metrics may show a sudden exponential explosion of individual skills. A child who lags behind his peers, e.g. in musical ability, may suddenly spurt ahead (e.g. recovering from two years of delays in just a few months). Another hallmark is a gradual progression of a child over percentile ranks in a given skillset (e.g. in the vocabulary count). This pattern of advancement over the peers may show in an entire spectrum of skills that may emerge in a course of a decade.
An illustrative equivalent of precocity paradox is precocious puberty. When hormonal changes associated with puberty occur earlier than average, we may see an early spurt of growth. In the end, due to the premature epiphyseal fusion, an impressively tall child may grow up to be a short adult.
Formula for genius
Biblical "early ripe, early rotten" is not a prescription for lost giftedness. When cherished, and sheltered, precocity can equally well lead to genius. There were equally many early bloomers in the ranks of the most accomplished personalities in history. We only need to remember that early benchmarks do not set the child's future in stone. The last thing healthy kids need is an "intervention". Natural development needs neither an acceleration nor a remediation.
Further reading
- Childhood amnesia
- Dangers of early acceleration
- Evidence for precocity paradox
- Daycare misery
- Baby management
- Stress resilience
- Semantic learning
- Asemantic curriculum
- Perfect learning
- Perfect adaptation
- Special needs education
- Rush little baby (Boston Globe)
Pictures
Figure: Precocity paradox explains why early acceleration may also result in an early stagnation. Slow and rich brain growth will prolong a set of unwelcome side effects of neurogenesis such as childhood amnesia. This may lead to an illusion that early academic training improves long-term developmental prospects. In reality, early acceleration may be a result of the crystallizing effect of stress on the brain structures. Kids who bloom late may bloom better. The best way to assist a healthy brain development is freedom and access to rich environments
Figure: Speech delays often spur parents or educators to seek speech therapy. However, it is not unusual for a seeming disability to self-correct. A laggard may grow well ahead of its peers as in the presented example. Similar metrics may be used to reassure parents, and prevent frivolous push for therapy. Uneven or slow development underlies the precocity paradox
Figure: New research shows how human-specific genes contribute to slower cortical development and higher intelligence, Oct 2024. SRGAP2B and SRGAP2C are genes unique to humans, having emerged through duplications of an ancestral gene, SRGAP2A. These human-specific versions seem to play a role in delaying the development of cortical neurons, a phenomenon known as neoteny, which refers to the prolonged maturation process in humans compared to other species (source)