Kids who are obsessed with dinosaurs are smarter than those who aren’t, one study claims. A study conducted at the universities of Indiana and Wisconsin found that children who develop intense interest do better later in life, the source noted.Joyce M. Alexander of Indiana University and her team found that this type of interest, especially those that demand conceptual mastery, has many benefits:
Improves perseverance, improves attention and improves complex thinking skills such as information processingLanguage skills and that is a good indicator of high comprehension.Psychologists explain that the ways children study dinosaurs help them devise strategies for coping with new situations and problems throughout their lives.
This interest is not by chance, children who have this passion have superior intelligence. Scientists call this behavior Intense Interests, an overflowing taste that makes them investigate, explore and analyze a particular topic. A third of children develop at some stage during their childhood, as a general rule between 2 and 6 years of age, intense interest.
In some cases, this interest is not extinguished in childhood but accompanies them for much of their life. They are those people who have always had a passion that, in a way, has served as a common thread and refuge throughout the years. Of course, all children are not passionate about dinosaurs, there are little astronomy fans who know a lot of stars and know how to identify them perfectly in the sky, others are obsessed with birds, airplanes or trains. In reality, it does not matter what the object of that passion is, what is truly important is the effort that children put into it and the passion they experience.
In practice, these types of interests, especially those that demand a conceptual domain such as dinosaurs, not only make the child have a greater knowledge of a certain subject but also enhance perseverance, improve attention and enhance skills. more complex thinking such as information processing.
They have also been shown to significantly improve language skills and are an indicator of high understanding. In fact, these psychologists explain that the way some children study dinosaurs or any other object of their interest, actually reveals the strategy that they will later use to face new situations and problems throughout their lives.
They will have to ask themselves questions and seek answers on their own, asking for help when they think they need it. Therefore, these intense interests would be preparing them for life since they are not satisfied with general data but scratch the surface to deepen.
Intense interests allow them to change perspective, consider strategies to discover what they want, find relationships and, above all, learn autonomously by directing their learning according to their motivations.
In short, intense interests make children delve into the world and develop critical thinking, motivate them to seek information and develop a passion for knowledge.
