Author: Rebecca Jade Williams, Ph.D.

When I think of people who are highly intelligent- for instance, people who demonstrate great verbal skills, or have a knack for mastering musical instruments- describing them as ‘naturally’ gifted seems rather, well, natural. But when we make statements such as ‘naturally’ gifted, we are making the assumption that skills and intelligence are hard-wired, or determined by genetic makeup. How true is this? Is our intelligence really something that we are born with?