Late bloomer

There is strong evidence that this perception may become self-fulfilling: although the child catches up, the teacher may continue to rate their performance poorly, imposing a long-term handicap.

[13] Neuroscientist Steven Pinker postulates that a certain form of language delay may in fact be associated with exceptional and innate-analytical prowess in some individuals.

[19] The autism spectrum of psychological conditions affects about 0.6% of children, characterized by widespread abnormalities of social interactions and communication, severely-restricted interests, and highly-repetitive behavior.

[20] Notable individuals with autism spectrum disorders include Tim Page, a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author[21] and Vernon L. Smith, a Nobel Laureate in economics.

Because of the wide variance in the onset of adolescence, this means that one class may include individuals who have not yet started puberty, others who are sexually mature but not fully grown and yet others who are effectively adult.

During this period, there is a high risk of an adolescent dropping out of formal education (due most commonly to laziness, intellectual boredom, bullying, or rebellion) without having achieved their full learning potential.

[29] The term "late-bloomer" may refer to such an individual who develops serious intellectual interests in their 20s or 30s and enrolls in college, where he or she performs particularly well and subsequently establishes a professional career.

[35] Zelda Rubinstein was forty-eight before she had her first role, a minor part in Under the Rainbow, but is more known for her "debut" in the Poltergeist film series starting the following year.

Irish actor Brendan Gleeson, who appeared as Mad Eye Moody in the Harry Potter films and alongside Colin Farrell in In Bruges, started acting professionally at thirty-four, having previous work as a school teacher.

The Indian (Bengali) actor Paran Bandopadhyay is another late bloomer, who started his acting career in television and films at the age of sixty, after retiring from his government job.

[45] Vincent van Gogh (March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art.

Japanese dancer and choreographer Kazuo Ohno did not undertake formal dance lessons until his late twenties and was 43 years old when he performed his first recital at Kanda Kyoritsu Hall in Tokyo in 1949.

[49] Martha Graham dancer David Zurak took his first dance class at the age of 23 and built a successful career in New York City.

[55] In baseball Josh Hamilton, a former number one overall draft pick, did not make his major league debut until the age of 26 due to years of serious drug and alcohol abuse.

[57] Hoyt Wilhelm was already 29 when he first played in the majors, but by the time he retired, at 49, he had set a record for most games pitched with 1,070 and had gained recognition as one of the greatest relief pitchers ever.

[58] Among contemporary players, Edwin Encarnacion has been described as a late bloomer because he had a completely unremarkable career until the age of 29, after which he turned into a prodigious slugger.

[59] Pitcher Randy Johnson, who made his Major League debut at 25, but did not reach superstar status until he was 30, might also be considered a late bloomer.

[61][62] In cricket, Dirk Nannes who once was played for Delhi Daredevils ahead of the great fast bowler Glenn McGrath made his first class debut at 29.

Thomas is a two-time winner of the Vezina Trophy (2009 and 2011) as the league's best goaltender, and was a member of Team USA in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

[69] In tennis, Angelique Kerber, Li Na, Stan Wawrinka, Francesca Schiavone, Flavia Pennetta, Jana Novotna, Goran Ivanišević and Andrés Gómez are famous late bloomers who won their first Grand Slam Singles titles after age 28.

A few years later, he become a professional footballer and was even able to score on his debut, a match winning goal in the Champions League, at the age of 30 while he was on loan at AC Milan.

[77] June Huh, a high school dropout and amateur poet who started to study mathematics seriously at age 24,[78] was later awarded the Fields Medal in 2022.

Marjorie Rice, an amateur mathematician with no formal education in mathematics beyond high school, born in 1923,[83][84] discovered four new types of tessellating pentagons in 1976 and 1977, in her fifties.

[87][88] Yitang Zhang submitted a paper to the Annals of Mathematics in 2013, at the age of 58, which established the first finite bound on the least gap between consecutive primes that is attained infinitely often.

These directors include Nicholas Ray, Alain Resnais, Edward Yang, Michael Mann, Frank Tashlin, Robert Aldrich, Satyajit Ray, Anthony Mann, Terry Gilliam, Jerry Lewis, Tsai Ming-liang, Don Siegel, Ridley Scott, Melvin Van Peebles, Gaspar Noé, Lloyd Bacon, Alexander Kluge, Mrinal Sen, Jean-Marie Straub, Ida Lupino, Sam Mendes, Alexander Payne, Ang Lee and Jacques Rivette.

Many notable directors started even later: Robert Bresson, Jacques Tati, and Takeshi Kitano directed their first features at 42; Maurice Pialat at 43; Michael Haneke at 47; Jim Sheridan at 40; and his peer and collaborator Terry George at 46.

Melchora Aquino was an uneducated Filipino peasant woman, the mother of six children, who became an activist in the fight to gain independence from Spain.

Within the final fifteen years of his life, Prabhupada translated over sixty volumes of classic Vedic scriptures (such as the Bhagavad Gita and Bhagavata Purana) into the English language.

She wrote two children's books in her late fifties, but her writing career did not gain note until her first novel at 70, written after the death of her husband.

[118] In other areas of writing, historian Gerda Lerner, born in 1920, published her first book, The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina, in 1967, when she was either 47 or 46 depending on her birthday.