The 21st century discoveries about the human brain and its functioning have showed the surprising fact that human abilities are not fixed at birth. In other words, what you are able to do with your life is not fixed when you are born. It is not all in the genes (基 因 ). It is not just nature: nurture (教育, 培育) plays an important part in the moulding (塑造) of what a person is, and what he/she can be.
Brain plasticity (可塑性) or neuroplasticity (神经可塑性) refers to the amazing ability of the human brain to modify (修改) its structure and functions according to the changes within the body and/or in the outer environment.
In his book „The Brain that Changes Itself‟ psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., offers an introduction to the great scientists strongly supporting neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've changed. The book describes real life stories of stroke( 中 风 ) patients learning to speak again, and the amazing story of a woman born with half a brain that restructured itself to work as a whole. It is a book that changes the way we think about our brain, its nature, and its potential (潜能).
The genes we receive from our parents are finite (有限的), no doubt about that. However, our brain's ability to develop is infinite. New brain cells are being born all the time, and to keep them alive and growing, we have to stimulate (刺激) them.
Here lies the promise of neuroplasticity in the moulding of children into adults who are capable of realizing their potential. For, genius is nothing but a human being who has realized his /her inborn potential! What Mozart, Einstein and da Vinci had was inborn potential plus (和，外加) the right environment.
All geniuses started life in exactly the same way. They had parents who supported the development of their individual gifts and talents. They had the right environment and stimuli (刺激， 刺激物) that led to the best development of themselves.
You can think about your child's gifts as the merging (融合的) colours of a rainbow. The possibilities are endless. All children are born with three natural abilities that provide them with the potential to think like a genius: the abilities to think, to learn and to develop their own individual way of thinking and learning.
Can your child be a genius? Yes, he/she can be, if you give him/her the right environment, the right stimuli and the right guidance.
