<p>Well, there goes my idea for admissions offices to hire palmists. Of greater interest when it comes to the CB's SAT: according to a new study coordinated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), children appear to approach adult levels of performance on basic cognitive and motor skills around the age of 11 or 12. This biomedical research on the brain and nervous system:</p>
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hints of much-cited differences in verbal and spatial ability between boys and girls, but these differences were not as sharp as those described in previous reports. In fact, there were no sex differences in verbal fluency. There were also no differences in calculation ability, suggesting that boys and girls have an equal aptitude for math.</p>
<p>Regardless of income or sex, children appeared to improve rapidly on many tasks between ages 6 and 10, with much less dramatic cognitive growth in adolescence. This result fits with previous research suggesting that in adolescence, there is a shift toward integrating what one knows rather than learning new basic skills.
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<p>NIH Study Tracks Brain Development in Some 500 Children across U.S.
First Report Looks at Intelligence, Behaviors from Ages 6-18
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2007, Vol. 13, pp. 1-18.</p>