Question of the week 20: Precocious

Hi and welcome to this week’s ‘question of the week’! For this week, the word ‘precocious’ will be covered in the following question:

What are the benefits for precocious children?

The terms precocious stands for something that experiences maturity faster and earlier than normal. For instance, the idea behind schooling and universities is to teach experiences from others in a faster way so that when students start to work, they are precocious compared to people who have learnt only from experience. Another example of precocious is when an excelling child jumps grades in school. But does being precocious deliver benefits to a child?

A child that is precocious would experience an accelerated education. This means that the teaching material will be of a higher level for a specific age, as will be the environment, where students would be older. Here are some advantages and disadvantages for precocious children:

Advantages

- A child learns at a faster rate, which means that fewer years can be spent on primary, secondary, and tertiary education. This means graduating at a younger age and savings on education costs.

- A child learns to interact with individuals older than oneself and experience being the youngest of the group.

- A child can learn his or her interests earlier, which could potentially allow for a higher level of specialization in a subject. In other words, a precocious child could become an expert and spend more time in a particular field than the norm.

Disadvantages

- A child would be exposed at an earlier age to more mature content (such as slang, video games, movies) that will be shared with students from the same grade. This is negative if the child handles the content wrongfully or is uneducated about it.

- A child will always experience childhood and education differently than the norm. This however does mean an accelerated pace to adulthood.

- A child may experience social-emotional immaturity compared to older students in the same grade.

In short: Precocious stands for something that matures faster than the norm. A child who skips grades in school is thus known to be precocious. Benefits for such a child includes lower costs and an earlier graduation, constant interactions with older people, and can learn his or her interests earlier, allowing for a higher level of specialization in a subject. It is to say though that there are also some drawbacks to an accelerated education.

If you have any differing opinions or examples that you would like to mention, then please do not hesitate to leave a comment!

This article used the following source as a reference on precocious children: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10174.aspx