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Frameist, it is hard when children do not receive what they need educationally or otherwise. While there might be truth to the thought that you could have done better by taking your own initiative, I hope you remember that you were a child then, and many (if not all) of these decisions were not within your control, so you cannot own the responsibility for those decisions. What I particularly appreciate about your thoughtful posts here is that you are trying to transform the hard lessons learned from your own experience into better proactive decision-making on behalf of the potential future children to which you have alluded (as well as other people's children that you might encounter along the way).

And on the original topic: I too strongly prefer that all options are considered, including but not restricted to grade acceleration. "No" change is still a choice, and not always the do-no-harm one people may think it is. One should also consider that the complications that institutions often claim are reasons not to accelerate are sometimes actually symptoms of the problems that might be solved by acceleration.

Welcome, ardenwood! (And apologies, lepa, that no one responded to your original post.)

I very much hope the VMI did not cost as much as $1000 per administration, even in your pricey area! Depending on how many components were administered and how quickly the student worked, 30 minutes might be generous. But I'm glad it was helpful for your DC's evaluation.

There are other types of dysgraphia, some of which would be better served by other instruments or more comprehensive evaluations, such as by an occupational therapist (if the concern is mainly fine-motor), or in academics, in various aspects of written expression (various types of professionals can do this). Executive functions--which are often impacted in the diagnoses reported by the OP--are also a factor for both mechanics and expressive aspects of writing. For example, self-monitoring errors and dysregulated attention both can explain inconsistent use of punctuation and capitalization, as well as spelling errors. Planning/organizing weaknesses can generate the difference between strong brief writing products and weaker extended writing products. EF would be best evaluated by a psychologist. Communication disorders can also impact written expression, at the level of the actual language being generated, even before it reaches the page, and would best be evaluated by a speech language pathologist.

Bottom line, there are many possible causes of writing weaknesses, some of which are in the category of dysgraphia proper. Among those, there are multiple types of dysgraphia. Appropriate remediation depends on accurate identification of the cause of writing weakness--which also requires an appropriately comprehensive evaluation of all suspected areas of challenge. Sometimes you just happen to pick the right area on the first try, but not always. (Your evaluator probably identified it more quickly because they also had WISC data and the accompanying clinical observations.)

Welcome NT! So sorry no one seems to have seen this earlier.

We do not have a child with this exact profile, but several other posters here do. And yes, this is pretty common.

If diagnosis is of specific value in your situation, have Ehlers-Danlos or other ligament laxity syndromes been discussed? Those are often overlapping with the symptoms you've described. In any case, good to hear that you have access to therapies with or without a diagnosis.

As to why? Many schools view significant impact on function entirely through the lens of grade-level expectations, so a student whose intellectual potential is well above average is still not viewed as underperforming, because they are keeping up with ... grade-level expectations. In some regions, this is actually codified in regulations regarding educational disabilities.

As much as mediation or legal action are things to keep in mind as options for age discrimination at the university level, it is as well to remember that much of the concerning behavior experienced may not originate from the institution itself, but from other members of the university community--which one cannot realistically control with litigation (certainly not without incurring other unintended consequences). In any case, my experience with early entrance/radical acceleration with university students as young as nine has been that not nearly as much age-based discriminatory behavior occurs as one might fear. The more important questions typically are within-student, and focus on social maturity and executive functions, some of which can be scaffolded by thoughtful adults around the student.

For our children, we took advantage of relatively generous access to dual enrollment classes (especially online), as a reasonable compromise between full in-person university enrollment as a matriculated student and adolescent (or younger)-level social/EF skills. I would also agree that AP exams are a viable option both for accumulating college credit and for scheduling more challenging course syllabi in your homeschool instruction. We have also used them.

The child I mentioned upthread was multiply grade-advanced, but then requested a one-year retention back to grade 11 as we were preparing to enter grade 12, because they felt they were not ready for college--but then of course, ended up with a full schedule of dual enrollment classes, entering university as a sophomore the following year--putting them in the same position in the end. My point in this latter anecdote is that flexibility is key, and careful attention to the bursts of development that any children--but especially GT kiddos--tend to have. Make plans, but be prepared to change them, and don't let your anxieties run too far ahead of reality.

First, the updated norms:

2025 NWEA MAP norms update, with data from 2022-2024. This is the mass of data, with practically everything you could possibly want to know--but you might have to dig for it:

https://www.nwea.org/resource-center/white-paper/88182/MAP-Growth-Norms_NWEA_Technical-Manual.pdf/

Quick reference/cut sheet:

https://www.nwea.org/resource-cente...norms-quick-reference_NWEA_onesheet.pdf/

Secondly, to your specific question: it is possible that this is reflects the updated norms. It is possible that it reflects the reduction in support. It is also possible that it simply reflects standard error and/or regression to the mean, and his ordinal position in the right-most tail of the norms, where a very tiny change in raw score can result in a relatively large change in percentile. I would suspect, based on the absence of significant test accommodations for most high-cognitive EF-weak learners, that this is not a reflection of lower support, since his test conditions probably did not change, and the material on the test is very likely below his level of optimal instruction (hence less affected by his instructional environment).

Thirdly, to your not-a-question-more-like-a-comment: that, sadly, is a common aggravation encountered by many learners with EF challenges, gifted or not gifted. So sorry to hear this.

And finally, did they move your DC to a 504 accommodation plan for ADHD? Even if he no longer demonstrates a need for specialized instruction, specialized accommodations are a separate question. The disability is still present and probably still acknowledged. If you can get a 504 in place, one of the options we've used in our building is essential assignments only, with EF-forward or repetitious skills reinforcement tasks excused.