At DS9's catholic schools Christmas service, I sat behind him and a friend in the pew. They were quite chatty and mischievous, and their teacher sitting in the pew in front had to turn around a few times to admonish them into silence.
After the service I went up to her to say goodbye and merry Christmas. She told me how pleased she was with DS9s development. I said I was rather embarrassed by how often she had to turn around and say something and she exclaimed: "but that's just it! He is finally relaxed enough to clown around with friends and get in trouble! He never did so, he was always so tense, but right now he is so well integrated into the classroom that this is happening as well. I have to tell him off of course regardless, like I have to do with the other kids, but secretly I am so pleased!"
I am rather glad now that we did not push for the second acceleration into middle school last year - I did have a feeling there was room for social growth there which was not going to be completely cancelled out by the comparable stagnation in academics. Now we can decide on whether to let him start at a middle school for high achievers (around 60% percentile and up, will later be closer to 75% percentile due to attrition) together with friends from elementary which is geographically close or the actual gifted program (around 95th percentile) which will involve an hourlong bus ride each way. Horribly hard choice but it also feels good to know that there are choices, both of which might work socially.