ABSTRACT
The main question addressed in this chapter is what kinds of experiences in the very first years of life foster the development of special talents in children. To answer this question, we cannot draw on the results of studies directly examining the effects of early experience on the development of gifted infants. These studies are simply lacking, because giftedness cannot be validly assessed in infancy. Most special talents are not yet visible in the first years of life. In many cases, special talents do not emerge before middle childhood. Signs of intellectual giftedness may be detected in the preschool years (Lewis & Louis, 1991), but research aimed at the identification of gifted infants remains a hazardous undertaking (Lewis & Michalson, 1985). Before turning to the question of whether and which experiences in infancy may possibly contribute to the development of otherwise invisible talents, we will first examine the thinking and findings in the general literature concerned with the effects of experience on the development of special talents.
