Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Math: how much is enough?

DS9 just scored 25 in the math EXPLORE test; his scores across the board were higher than I expected. I'm trying to figure out whether his accelerated math placement is appropriate, or if not, what to do.

Right now he's in 4th grade (young for grade), subject-accelerated to 6th in math; I've known all along it was easy for him, but he doesn't mind, and it was the most we could get at the elementary school. He enjoys math immensely, but isn't particularly interested in working very hard outside of school hours. He's finished "9th grade Geometry" in ALEKS; we have hesitated to let him go further immediately, because being 5 years out of sync has already created placement problems, and we don't want to make it worse.

The plan for next year is to put him into 7th grade math at the public middle school (they will transport him). The 7th-grade course (Common Core 7) is essentially pre-algebra. It is concerning that if he's truly mastered middle school math (implied by the EXPLORE result) then he won't be seeing a lot of new math in a class for some years yet.

I'm putting this in the 2E thread because DS9 has Asperger's; his social immaturity has always been a major factor in determining his educational placement. He does well with the acceleration he has now; but I am not sure how far ahead we should let him go, because his ability to fit in socially is nowhere near on a par with his age or his cognitive ability.

We are committed to keeping him in a classroom, with instruction and peers; independent learning is not the right answer for this kid, and I am not eager to homeschool the math. Math is the area where he interacts best with peers, so social learning will be an important component of any plan we make.

I'd especially like to hear from people whose children were placed several years ahead of age peers in a classroom setting: how many years' gap is too much?

Thanks,
DeeDee

Depends on the kid. DD8 is in honors geometry in 8th grade now and will go to high school next fall for algebra 2. In aleks she is in precal. She does Aleks on the side now for kicks.

Socially it's not a problem and academically it's not a problem. She has middle school friends she goes out with (dinner/movies). Facebook is a great social tool.

She asked to take algebra 2 and precal next year and it's just a matter of scheduling. Head of math department is trying to work out a schedule that would work. Don't know if she gets the 2 courses she wants, but she will be at least in algebra 2.

if Math is a good place for him to interact with peers, I can understand trying to preserve that. My situation is different enough that I don't think I can be much help to you, but I wanted to make sure you know about AOPS Counting and Probability as well as Number Theory. Since they are out of typical school progression, he could have "new math" without getting further "ahead" in class progression. Just a thought.

We have a similar situation, but have chosen not to do outside math like ALEKS. Honestly, I *generally* think it's best to keep kids close to their same-age peers. Our dd21 was already young for grade (not terribly, but bday a few days before fall cutoff) and then grade-skipped. She definitely always had friends and such, but there IS a difference when they are younger. I think many, many kids could go ahead in math if they were schooled in it through programs like ALEKS, but I'm not sure in the end what you really get from it. Now, I am NOT being all negative. Our ds10/4th grade also got a 25 (seems like quite a few did this year from 4th... wonder if the test was easier??) and will be going to middle school next year for math we hope. So, I'm all for acceleration, but at the same time, I think that just plowing through math isn't necessarily the answer. And honestly, I don't think that my own ds's 25 implies that he's mastered the middle school curriculum in math. He still makes the occasional stupid mistake and looking at the curriculum of ds11 (who is in 6th and preAlgebra now) I see that there are definitely things that ds10 doesn't know. Yes, I have to admit, a lot of preAlgebra is pretty easy for ds11 (who didn't have the opportunity to go beyond the way that ds10 has had, due to a different principal at the time) but he's also learning other stuff (different ways to do stuff, interacting with others, math writing skills, etc). Another thing that we're doing with ds11 is Art of Problem Solving (though weeks go by where he doesn't look at it, because he's busy with other stuff) and math team - that has been a different kind of enrichment for him than straight curriculum.
For ds10, he is on track to do Calculus BC in 10th grade, and ds11, Calc BC in 11th. They can then do AP Stats and/or Calc III (Ds11 can do both if he chooses to do Stats concurrently with either of the calcs).
At this point, I don't even know if they'll do anything math-related. Dd21 is graduating soon with a science degree and she certainly didn't need that level of math. Dd19 is going the humanities route, so she needed even less.
I can fully believe that an 8 year old has middle school friends, however - I think that there will be a natural gap as they age. Dd21 is PG and loves intellectual conversations. She adores talking to her brothers. But, honestly, would she have ever had close friendships with someone more than a few years younger in HS? No...
There have also been a lot of "little things" - the dating, the driving, even the drinking. Dd21 is on year 5, but had she graduated in 4, she would have graduated underage. Dd19 will graduate as a minor next year. Now, I know this all probably sounds silly (who needs to drink?) but do you know how many senior events or meetings are held in bars?
So, I'm not saying that I would have changed my dds' experience OR that I'm not going to continue to advocate for my dss. However, I will say that I am going to try to expand other areas (social emotional, athletic, writing, etc) and not really focus as much on math, even though they seem pretty gifted. As we were told when dd21 was diagnosed, "she will always be this gifted. You don't have to do it all now." In the end, does it matter whether my kids take Calculus in 8th grade or Calculus in grad school?
Just my two cents...

I can fully believe that an 8 year old has middle school friends, however - I think that there will be a natural gap as they age. Dd21 is PG and loves intellectual conversations. She adores talking to her brothers. But, honestly, would she have ever had close friendships with someone more than a few years younger in HS? No...

Sure there are gaps, but for some kids it doesn't matter. DD isn't looking for close friendships. She just looking to hang out. It works for her in that she has friends her age too and it never gets dull. When you're subject accelerated it works out because you can do both. Go hang out with aged peers playing hide and seek and go to a horror movie with your older friends because they are ready to do stuff like that. Actually she scares some of them because they are not ready for that! she had a sleepover here with 3 middleschoolers and they were run ragged and one couldn't sleep for a week because she was scared of the movie. DD was surprised and now wants to find some high schoolers to hang with.

But close friendship..who knows. It doesn't matter really. They tell her who they like..what boy is cute..she keeps their secrets. It's funny really..an 8 year old texting 14 year olds about their crushes and other fluffy topics. DD just goes with the flow and doesn't take it all seriously.

But when it comes to math she just can't sit around. She doesn't want to go at the pace they present math at school. She just wants more and in that subject she can get that acceleration and the social issue really isn't an issue for her so there are no cons for her as far as being subject accelerated.

It does depend on the kid.

I get what you're saying too. It doesn't matter when you get calculus. If you're kept busy and are happy doing other things, then that's great.

DeeDee, this is just my hunch based on what you've written, but I think I'd leave him where he's at now - he seems to be doing really well, he's happy, and it's an opportunity for him to be in a class where he can fit socially, overall it sounds like a good solution.

We haven't ever had our kids take the Explore, so I'm not familiar with scores vs grade level, but I'm curious - when you get a score that is interpreted as "mastered middle school math" - what exactly do they mean by middle school math? That could potentially mean anything from a very basic math course through Algebra II in our school district, which might make a difference in my view of what to do.

You mentioned your ds has completed Geometry in Aleks - where did he start in Aleks? How easy was it for him? Do you feel he's solid in everything that goes into Geometry? Does your ds want more & higher level math at school?

polarbear

Thanks, all, this is a very helpful conversation.


His EXPLORE score puts him at 99th percentile for the 8th graders who take the test. Many of them would have had Algebra I, but probably many wouldn't have had it. (In our district, Algebra is considered HS math.)


DS is extremely proud of his fast pace of learning math. Until he hit geometric proofs, it was very smooth sailing-- he was started in ALEKS last year by the school, at the 4th grade level, and zoomed through quickly. I think if he'd had actual instruction, geometry would have been easy... as it was, it slowed him down, but he's pleased to have gotten through it. His teacher and I were loath to start Algebra II, as it's only widening the gap between him and peers.

I do not trust that ALEKS is complete as a curriculum, and I don't trust that it's teaching real facility in problem-solving either. It was the EXPLORE result that set me back on my heels and suggested that he is mastering more than I had thought he was.

Herenow, I'm glad to have the AOPS alternatives-- I'm definitely interested in broader rather than faster!

DeeDee

I wanted to add that facebook and texting has really impacted the social landscape.
This is how it usually goes. People friend her on facebook. Or they are in the hall and say hi to each other, but don't know names. Then someone messages in FB and says "You might not know me, but "let's be friends". OK so they get to know each other on facebook or text and then they agree to meet in the morning before school. One girl wanted to introduce DD to her mother that was a teacher. Then she texted and said now that my mother knows you ..we can go out! So then a bunch of them went to hunger games and slept over. It's like friend dating! LOL.

There are lots of kids who don't want to friend a younger kid, but there are those that want to for whatever reason and so the communication happens that way. And the range of kids messaging is from all grades in MS. Just random people in school that want to connect. Socializing is like a whole side job! So many want to chat! I have her turn off her chat because it gets too crazy.

Anyway..if your kid is social and likes that kind of thing, it could work out OK.

Watching with keen interest, but no personal input here...

lmp, do you have any sense of how that fb messaging extends to the boys? I find your description of how things work unsettling.

My 9 year old daughter will be going to the MS for math next year. She doesn't have a cell phone, nor will she for a good long while yet. She's also not legal to have a fb acct yet. Nor does she even have the remotest interest.

I'm asking about the boys partly in context of DeeDee's question, and lurking to see how people navigate things as I see that my son will likely be there in a very short time.

geofizz - OT to the original post, but re your question about boys, middle school, and social media etc. Our experience has been that some of the girls at our ds' middle school are all into this - they have cell phones, they text, they're on FB etc. Cell phones aren't allowed to be on during the school day and are confiscated if the kids are found using them, so there's a flurry of texting etc right before school starts and after the last class gets out. The girls that are in families that don't allow cell phones and electronics don't seem to really care about any of that, or be concerned about not having it.

The boys - some have the electronics, some don't. Our ds has had an email account for some time so that he can email homework and also as a totally worthless attempt on our part to encourage him to practice typing and writing. None of ds or his male friends have the slightest interest in texting/FB/etc, much less sending an email. DS just asked me a few weeks ago what on earth it is that girls find to text about lol!

So - that's our limited experience so far with a ds in middle school. To be honest, overall, I find the social issues that I would be concerned about with respect to accelerating one of my dds in school ahead of same-age peers not to be as concerning with my ds. Part of it is personality, part of it is being male. And I can't believe I said that! But fwiw, the things that middle school kids talk about, are interested in etc... the girls in general just seem to be more obsessed with boys, vampires, social media, friends/cliques, etc.

polarbear

Thanks polarbear and cricket. You both make excellent points.

Getting a sense of the social dynamic when moving to middle school and being out of sync age-wise is important for decisions like DeeDee's.

Back to the regularly scheduled thread...

My friend has a 7th grade son who is a nice boy. He is an athlete and good-looking. He brought his cell phone to his mom (my friend)- two girls from his class, who were "nice girls" had emailed him photos of themselves naked! Unreal. He was not sure what to do. I think it's a different world.

Boys? Well boys text and message girls in middle school that's normal, but for an 8 year old girl it's not problematic as no one is asking her on a date. But she does occasionally call boys to ask for HW or they may message her to be her friend.

Last week she gets one that says "Hey I saw you at Chili's..It's R. Then she has to remember who the heck that is. This kid is in 6th grade. They have a discussion about things and then I suppose she'll try to remember who it was that she talked to. She still doesn't remember exactly what that kid looks like.

There are just so many people she sort of knows. Well more that know her than she knows them.

Or she was messaging a kid because she wants to learn archery and he is in state competitions. It's just friendships really.

DD has a cell and she is the only one allowed to use it in school. Why? because it keeps her organized. The teacher and administration allow her this because she takes notes and sets her calendar.

She is allowed to go to high school competitions on the bus and THEY (administration) felt so much better that she has a phone. They were making me drive her, but realized she could handle herself just fine and I told them she has her phone and with iPhone you can track it too. They felt more comfortable so they allowed to her go on her own and now it's a non-issue. Then she friends high schoolers from the competitions and they all end up on FB. Her social circle just keeps expanding. She decides if she likes them or not and if she wants to hang out. etc.

MSchoolers..yeah obsessed with boys, (vampires are old news! well to DD at least) media, cliques, kids hating school.. and gossip, cell phones, texting, apps etc. It's not that complicated really.

DD8's a level headed type. Not too engrossed in any of it and basically her and I just laugh at all the silly things. She has more boys troubles in 4th grade than middle school. She is grade skipped and some of those boys are 2 years older than her. There's just as much gossip and boy obsession in 4th grade. But it's not a big deal because if someone likes her, her strategy is to ignore and they will move on to the next girl. 8th grade is actually easier in this regard. She's just their friend not their love interest.

I am surprised how easily she took to being subject accelerated. Her teacher just said to me "she just belongs here. We were concerned about it in the beginning of the year, but as time went on she just became part of the class. You just forget sometimes she's 8."

I don't think the kids forget she's 8, it's just that they don't have a problem with her being young. They are very accepting and open. It's probably because she can somewhat speak their language so there's common ground.

A friend's son is a starter next year on the varsity football team and is an A+ student. He is only 16 and is still a boy in many ways. The brazenness of some of the girls in HS has shocked his parents and confused him. Its bizarre that he is the one setting the ground rules for dates.

As for the OP, I was accelerated from 7th to 10th. I pretty much focused on the academics as it was interesting again. I was so young compared to other classmates, that the usual dynamics did not apply to me. I sat up front where I could see the teacher.

Its easier in many ways for a boy though. I played a lot of sports - soccer, football, and ran track, so some of the older boys knew me from their brothers and from the pick-up games at lunchtime. So I was able to form relationships based on shared sports interests.

I pretty much focused on the academics as it was interesting again. I was so young compared to other classmates, that the usual dynamics did not apply to me.

Yes..this is why it makes it easy. She gets to watch it, but not be in it. She gets to be interested in the academics and amused about the social.

I think the social dynamic is quite school-specific. I understand that our middle school is a pretty nurturing place. That said, I'd like DS to spend some time there and not go straight into the high school.

I do think he'd be baffled by a lot of the social behavior that is age-appropriate for 13-year-olds. He's just not there yet. A lot would go over his head, no doubt, but it's a concern. He is pretty naive and defenseless in many respects.

I'm grateful for the balance of concerns heard so far in this thread-- very helpful.

DeeDee

Social dynamic can also be group specific. Most of the kids in dd's honor geometry do not have have cell phones or Facebook. So a kid could be in the same school and see the social component totally different.

Btw the beauty of subject acceleration is that dd will spend plenty of time in middleschool and just gets a snapshot of high school next year. For the right personality this scenario works well, but it's not for everyone.

I'm gathering from this thread that most people think the social aspect is a huge consideration, and I would not necessarily disagree, but right now (ha! about a year or two into this whole gifted issue thing) we are thinking that the best thing for DD8 is to try to help her develop her positives (in her case so far, math ability) and hope that eventually the social stuff will catch up (we are working on that, too, of course). It has been suggested that she has a variety of disorders including Aspergers, but although we would agree that she probably meets at least 2 and possibly 3 of the "A" category criteria, we do not agree that she meets any of the "B" category--and so is not technically an Aspie. However, she does have significant social difficulties even though she has several good friends and usually gets along pretty well with most other kids at school. Regardless of where they fall on the spectrum, though, my personal opinion (which may well change drastically in the future! Heaven forbid) is that if a kid is asking for more advanced material, then they should get it if possible. The social stuff may be difficult through high school regardless, but once people are in college and beyond they're much more likely to find their social niche (as I did) and at that point I think they are best served by having developed their skills to the best of their ability (and inclination--not advocating any kind of pushing here). Our DD may never "fit in" in many social situations, but I am convinced that once she is with people who are more like her (i.e., 'math geeks'), she will do great and I want her to have as many choices as possible for future schooling/profession, etc., so that she can find a job/career that will help her feel fulfilled and happy.

Just my opinion; of course every kid is different and you know your kid best.
Best of luck for and with your DS!!

Dbat, there are two ways of considering the 'social' aspect. One is to view it as having a classroom of kids become a source of friends. Life is grand when surrounded by friends.

The other is to have sufficient social sophistication to understand non-literal, or non-verbal cues to how to behave appropriately in a given situation. When kids are getting a test back and groaning, you don't chime in with "It was really hard! I only got a 98%". It's picking up on sarcasm and not interpretting it as literal. It's understanding that math might not be everyone's favorite subject and talking about something else occasionally. This will get harder to navigate as the age and maturity gap widens between the child and the other kids in the classroom.

I suspect this second kind of "social" adjustment that the OP is thinking about.

The thread is interesting to me since I have a DD8. She's never been skipped. Started in K with principal flat-out refusing (we always heard about the child two-years ahead whose parents requested a skip for their son and how they fought them on it...as if it had anything to do with us...I had never heard of the Iowa Acceleration Scale) then going into the new school I thought one skip would be a nice fit but again, not their policy.

I have noticed lately that in her mixed-age music program outside of school, she keeps an eye on the older girls and stands a little straighter and is showing a "smoother" side of herself when she's in that environment. It is a very supervised and focused group and I think because the director and the other kids seem to appreciate her contributions and are supporting her working into the group, it is helping her self-esteem. So I think if a parent can find a group that is matched to the child's strengths and it's a good, supervised environment with an instructor/adult leader who is supportive of the younger child being there and can work in their contributions, it could be wonderful for the child. Especially if the school hyper-focuses on the "challenges".

I agree that there has to be some balance. We have spent a lot of time therapizing to address DS's weaknesses, which were really extreme in early elementary and clearly precluding any success in any subject. It is only recently that the giftedness has become an equal priority. At this point, we still see a lot of benefit in making social development a key piece of all planning.

He is going to soar in math and science, no matter how we pace him now. I'd rather he acquire all the skills for a balanced life in the process, to the extent possible. We're not going to deprive him of math for the long term... it's just a question of timing. The questions geofizz raised are indeed still very important in my thinking.


Our school is doing a nice job of balancing focus on challenges and strengths right now, and I expect that to continue. DS knows what his assets are and feels great about them. He is making fabulous progress on his challenges, and becoming more able to talk about them as well as deal with them independently.

There are a lot of unpredictables about sending him to the middle school next year (I don't know the teachers, nobody there knows DS yet, will they recognize his gifts and disabilities properly, etc.)-- but I am hoping we will be able to set it up for success.

Kcab, your thought earlier in the thread about who the peers are was very helpful-- I reopened the conversation with those who can help determine this, and I'm hoping to get DS in with the 6th graders who are accelerated to 7th, rather than with 7th graders-- both for social and intellectual fit, the 7th grade placement is more likely to work.

Ultimately, it will be up to the middle school staff to work with us on figuring out where he belongs. I'm trying hard to be OK with the waiting for that to work itself out. DS is happy; that matters a lot.

DeeDee

I don't think anyone can deprive DS of his strengths... he sees the world through a math lens. When we saw cannonballs during a recent tourism jaunt, he got busy calculating their volume, density, and likely trajectories. I love it that he's unstoppable... that will get him somewhere in life, sooner or later.

But we are also building and supporting, to a fairly extreme degree, all the time.

Thanks.

DeeDee

In the end, now that DD is 8, I'm actually happy that she wasn't full-grade accelerated, from a social perspective, being that there seems to be so much unsupervised time at school and she's keen on keeping tabs on what kids are doing and reading and buying... Some of the girls she was playing with on the playground last fall are now chasing a couple of 5th grade boys every day after school. Luckily she's not the least bit interested in joining them right now. I can wait for whatever middle school will bring!!

DeeDee I have been reading alot about Aspergers and I don't know about DD but I've unofficially "diagnosed" DH! I told him last week and thought he would bristle, but he quietly said, "I think you're right!" (lovely words for a wife to hear at any rate)

There was a collective sigh of relief...it explains so much!

Anyway I have a question for you since you seem to know quite alot. If it's okay I'd like to send you a PM with my question.

No problem.

DeeDee