The question arises as to when special talents and deficiencies become evident in growing individuals. We know almost beyond any doubt that the degree of general intelligence is manifested from the beginning of life, and could be measured then if our instruments of precision were fine enough. With present methods we cannot undertake with confidence the measurement of general intelligence much before school age. Extreme deviations may be reliably identified as early as 3 years of age, or earlier, but slight amounts of deviation cannot be reliably determined by available methods before the age of 5 or 6. The inadequacy of method with very young children arises, partly because it is so difficult to obtain non-select children under school age for purposes of standardization, partly because of the coarseness of the “steps” at present used to measure. The most refined and reliable scales we have are cast in terms of “mental age,” and some do not allow for any difference of less than “2 months of mental age.” An error of only two misscorings in the same direction would therefore result in a considerable error in the IQ of a child 3 years old; since 4 months is a large percentage of 36 months. As early as 6 years, however, even by present methods, we can determine objectively the individual’s status in general intelligence. The indications are that when the measurement of special talents has made similar progress, we shall find that these become evident just as early as general ability does. These special talents are gifts, innate in the organism, and manifested no doubt from the beginning of life, just as general intelligence is. In the discussion of special gifts for music, drawing, and calculation we shall see that investigators have been particularly struck by the very early age at which these were manifested in the persons studied. It is common for those who later became historical prodigies in these performances to have shown symptoms of their ability as early as 3 or 4 years of age. On the other hand, special deficiencies in these functions are not commonly noted until after school has been entered, usually long after. This is inevitable, because no one is likely to suspect a child of tone deafness, for instance, until his music teacher has worked with him for some time. But conspicuous aptitude for melody and rhythm is likely to be noticed.