In my experience (with two 2E kids of opposite "persuasions"), verbal children are far easier to support academically. Even in an unsupportive system, they can self-enrich - read, write, research, analyze - to the depth they crave. Without acceleration classroom discussion may not be very interesting, but teachers don't usually consider it a problem for the child to do more than needed.
The situation can be really different in math, where a child can't go a lot further than they've been taught (especially in younger grades), so acceleration is needed to be able to work at that depth they crave. Otherwise, the child just doesn't have the basic tools they need to do math. (In an anti-acceleration system, it seems to be a lot harder to be a mathy kid than a verbal one.)
I have to really disagree there. I don't have a mathy child, most of my friends with highly+ gifted children all have mathy children. Most of whom have self directed their math learning in a system that ignored them, until it couldn't. Which is to say have easily self taught to a level of AT LEAST 5yrs in advance of their school grade by mid primary school. It's completely unclear whether they would have continued to self teach, because as you say, math kids get seen and they get opportunities (eventually). They are also acknowledged. I can think of multiple families where their more even or globally gifted child is under-recognised and under-served compared to their overtly mathy child.
It is certainly true a very verbal child can read books many years in advance of age, and write for the joy of it. But there is a clear need for instruction on critical analysis, persuasive writing, etc, that doesn't' just "happen" (now that I think about it, this happens in our schooling system at right about the same level the kids I am thinking of have stopped having to self teach math and started getting support, or rather support to do math at that level while younger).
Perhaps this is also a matter of degrees and of personality. Some children will be more likely to self extend, whether in math or verbal, than others, and some will have more or less ease of doing that.
However, and this is by far the biggest issue for us, there is no moral/social/emotional content to math, at least not in the k-12 years of math content. Doing math years beyond your peers is just math, and it's likely to be beautiful and engaging. Engaging with more "verbal"subjects years in advance of your age is a can of worms. My child is currently doing CTY verbal courses as part of their homeschool work and its really just busy work. It's better busy work than school, but that's what it is, they are not really learning anything other than how to do an online course, and how to work within the American system (which is useful up to a point). I looked at going up an age bracket but the content is not appropriate.
I am making my way through Miraca Gross's book atm, and she does point out very early on that most of the children in her study who go any extension or acceleration got math/science extension (either first or only) because it was easy to cater to. And this was whether math was their most pronounced strength or not. The children who were more soley verbally gifted ALL got no accommodations and suffered for it.
This was actually what prompted me to write this post, wanting to see if things had changed in this regard.
However, *socially* is another story. Math strengths are specific and noticeable, which makes tribe-finding easier - courses, camps, on-line resources, there's tons out there virtually, and often locally. I know how to find math and mathies for my math monster. It's way harder to find like-minded kids for my novelist.
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Verbal strength - like reading weakness - is a fairly global capacity which affects almost everything. It's easier to deal with because it's everywhere - but like so many things, if it's everywhere, that often ends up feeling like it's nowhere.
Long-winded way of saying, I hear you!
I certainly agree that it seems like it's "nowhere" in the options available for my child. I sat with her assessing psychologist at the last appointment and commented on the yawning gap between the pscyhologist's assessment of her IQ, academic and social/emotional status vs how school/s have perceived her.
