[nl]

" And yet whenever I read stories of "real" prodigies, I never see anything like this--they always seem to continue their trend and prove to be brilliant mathematicians."

No, it's very, very rare that child prodigies go on to have significant impact in the field they were brilliant at as a child.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_of_Mathematically_Precoci... for some details. (I read a very interesting article about Tao previously which addressed this - trying to find it now)

[nl]

Hmm. Reading the papers from that study group seems to prove me 100% wrong. I suspect my selective referencing skills need improving.

[sireat]

Note: I read the abstract for the 35 year study and glanced over the paper.

The researchers findings seem to be that these prodigies are for most part well adjusted/succesful, but do not necessarily go/stay into math/science fields.

Are those the findings, or is there something more?

[nl]

They split the prodigies into science/math people and humanities people. I skim read the paper, and it showed a correlation between the field they were talented in and achievement in that field.