http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/against-accelerating-the-gifted-child/
Against Accelerating the Gifted Child
By JESSICA LAHEY
New York Times
October 14, 2012

...

According to A Nation Deceived, a 2004 report by the Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration, most schools cannot handle the needs of gifted children, and acceleration is a good solution for students in need of more intellectual stimulation. The report points to hundreds of studies that have been conducted on academic acceleration, and most show no negative emotional outcomes for accelerated students. But the majority of these studies are based on subjective reporting by the students themselves, a notoriously inaccurate and blunt research tool.

My concerns about grade accelerations are best articulated by the recommendations for best practices published in Gifted Child Quarterly. Toward the end of the report, the author, Maureen Neihart, warns that acceleration “may be harmful to unselected students who are arbitrarily accelerated on the basis of I.Q., achievement, or social maturity,”

In other words, the decision to skip students ahead a grade or two should not be made on the basis of intellect alone. Steve Perkins, a high school teacher in Indianapolis, agreed by e-mail: “Yes, a fifth grader may be able to do seventh-grade math. Skipping the child, however, ignores the physical factors of development. When we assume that the pure cognitive is the be-all, end-all, we have grossly misunderstood the whole.”

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I don't agree with the article, but there are some good comments at the NYT site rebutting it. The educational system often acts like age is the "be-all, end-all", and that is currently a bigger problem than overemphasis of the "pure cognitive" in grade and class placement.

It's all anecdotal, one person's perspective without any substantive evidence presented. The comments are likewise. I don't think it's worth much.

Of course there are tradeoffs with acceleration, as there are with any major decision about educational placement.

DeeDee

I think that this is the key quote here and I'd honestly agree. I've seen unsuccessful accelerations. They usually involved kids who were selected on the basis of one of these factors mentioned or maybe two with the third being a substantial weakness.

For instance, a kid with two of the above listed traits: high IQ kid & high achievement in most subjects, but who has Asperger's & would, thus, likely be fairly weak in the area of social maturity. I've seen kids like this skipped and they suffered terribly socially.

Another instance: a kid with one of the above mentioned strengths: high achievement, but more average IQ and social maturity. I've seen kids like this who are very high performers who are skipped or subject accelerated based on their high performance and who later falter because they are not intellectually able enough to keep up with the higher level work as they get into harder levels of the work.

Although I'm not a complete fan of the Iowa Acceleration Scale only by virtue of the fact that it seems fairly subject to subjective opinions in many areas, it does at least look at all of the areas that should be considered when looking at skipping a kid: ability, achievement, and social. My one kiddo who is grade accelerated was an excellent candidate for the skip using the IAS and it has been successful. She's a huge advocate of being placed ahead and feels like the fit, while still imperfect, is much better than it would have been without the skip (socially as well).

I love the "logic" of the article. According to the author, the findings of a "A Nation Deceived" are suspect even though they are based on "hundreds of studies that have been conducted on academic acceleration, and most show no negative emotional outcomes for accelerated students" because they are "based on subjective reporting by the students themselves, a notoriously inaccurate and blunt research tool."

The author refutes decades of research with the personal observations of a columnist, a fifth grade teacher and one woman who was unhappy about her grade skip as child. Hundreds of subjective studies outweighed by three individual subjective opinions. Hmmm.

I am so glad that this column did not appear last week when administrators at DD's school were weighing her skip. She is a great candidate under the IAS and really wants the skip but one of the administrators could have written this same article. "What about social problems? What about middle school?" He was adamant that no child should ever be skipped because of these factors. Ultimately he was overruled but it is so frustrating to try to fight such continually perpetuated bias, conventional wisdom and shibboleths.

It's tough.

As a child I could not connect socially because I could not connect cognitively. I should have been grade skipped.

Frankly, I think cognition comes first because it affects socialization. I was disconnected cognitively and because of that didn't interact as much as they felt I should have, and the school staff took that as social immaturity and denied me any skips.

I don't think you can "paint all skips with the same brush" so to speak. I get tired of hearing about the social aspect, because in my case it was the LACK of a skip that caused my social disconnect. I know I'm not alone in this.

I think each situation, child Vs skip scenario, should be individually assessed.

Thumbs up to this post (and the others here as well). I was dismayed (but not surprised) by the shallow thinking displayed in the Motherlode article.

My eldest skipped two grades. Academically, it was the right thing to do. Yes, there was some disconnect with other kids in his class last year due to changes in adolescence. But IMO, this is a problem to be addressed, not a reason to hold a child back. And honestly, the larger problem was the cognitive disconnect. Due in part to that problem, he learned next to nothing last year. This, not the adolescence thing, is why we're homeschooling this year. And he's a lot happier and sees his friends.


Would the kid have still suffered socially without the skip?

This isn't my kid, so hard to say, but you're probably correct that this is a kid who is going to have a hard time socially anyway. I bring it up more as a point that, without the accompanying weakness in the social realm, I've seen absolutely no negative social impact to being much younger. My skipped kid is a young 14 y/o 10th grader. Middle school went unbelievably well socially. She was truly happy and had a ton of friends so we certainly didn't see any of the horrible social disaster that the blogger seemed to imply would occur in middle school and beyond.

The aim can't be for one's gifted child to fit in like she's average, in whatever grade she finds herself; the more unusual and healthily confident the child, the more she'll tend to stick out. Thinking about the whole HG+ child must give higher priority than normal to intellectual needs, which are greater than normal and more likely to do harm if unmet. I also agree that one has to think of the difference in harm, though that might be difficult.

That's a good way to look at it. For my dd14, the academic and emotional harm and, honestly, the harm in lack of connection with her grade peers, would likely be greater were she an 8th or 9th grader this year (she would be an older 8th grader or a very young 9th grader - bd just makes the cut for that grade) than whatever harm comes from her current placement.

In terms of my hypothetically socially challenged/2e kid above who is skipped, I can't speak to where the harm would be greater b/c it isn't one we've personally encountered. We have opted not to skip our 2e kid, although she was started a bit early, but it is due to issues other than social. The interesting thing that we're finding now, though, is that opposite to kids who are accelerated early on due to high achievement and who falter later due to the ability not being quite there, her achievement is getting better and better as she gets into higher level work. We're finally seeing some pretty consistent performance (fingers crossed!).

Having skipped myself, I am a huge advocate. But I also had a small peer group sliding through the elementary grades.

But I think that today, the discussion is moot. DD has a fall birthday and is young for her grade. But since so many kids are redshirting (not in NYC but elsewhere) she is younger by months of kids who are a grade lower when we are at the beach in NJ for the summer. Red shirting is big in NJ.

In comparison, she is grade skipped in NJ. The argument really blurs. But I do think it is nice to be in a gifted school where there is a peer group as puberty hits and the kid is younger.

Digressing, there is a kid in DD's class (a gifted class but the bar is 90% on the OLSAT if you are a sibling and siblings get first shot). Really nice kid and she is trying so hard to hang with DD. I talked to DD about it and finally she says, "you know how I am in a gifted class and kids are suppose to be smart? Well, I am not sure how she got in the gifted class." I wanted to laugh but controlled.

Just because you skip doesn't mean you will get with peers. Having a small group when I skipped really helped and I noticed I hung with those types all through high school.

I remember being in the library in high school and there was this girl Mary, (stereotypical thin, with big boobs and small brain). She was struggling with some simple math and I just happened to be near and said hi. She asked me for some help and I remember sitting and trying to teach her some simple math. She was in my grade, 2 years older but not my peer...She was a nice girl but we had nothing in common except she had a gorgeous brother who played hockey that I wanted to know better.

Ren

Thanks. That was informative.

It's a tough decision either way, made worse by inflexibility on the part of schools, which is driven in part by perpetuation of myths like the one in Motherlode.

I have not heard of sibling preference for gifted programs before and do not approve of them, especially in public schools.

DD's gifted program offers sibling preference, but the sib has to test in at the same level as everyone else. The preference comes in because qualified sibs get a spot automatically and don't have to go through the lottery. Since there really isn't a reasonable bus system for the magnet (DD would have to ride more than an hour to get to a school about 4 miles away--insanity) and all elementaries start at the same time, I feel quite grateful that they have this in place.

If there are more children who exceed a test threshold than there are available spots in a gifted program, the threshold can simply be raised to match the number of spots. The highest-IQ kids should be the ones who can most benefit from a gifted program.

I can see the rationale for sibling preference if the sibling meets the entrance requirements. Having two kids at two different elementary schools can be a huge pain for everyone.

Unfortunately, entry requirements can be very fuzzy, especially if they include teacher recommendations and low test score minima. A school around here sets the test score bar around the 70th percentile (a.k.a. "high average") and puts a lot of weight on teacher recommendations.

The requirements here are pretty simple--IQ is the main one. No teacher recs or achievement testing. Grades play a small part.

I sort of see the point about favoring the highest IQs, but I really don't think I could deal with 2 kids at different elementaries.

I think too that a skip can appear failed if the environment is wrong. My daughter was skipped in a school that simply didn't support her. She continued to be extremely socially isolated and anxious and the school decided this was because of immaturity and felt the skip had failed. We moved schools, retaining the skip, and it has been hugely successful. In part because the school is much more responsive her needs, but also because more of the kids suit her personality. Given our experience I sometimes wonder how often well considered skips (at least, well considered from the parent's side) appear failed when really it's just that a skip in itself isn't enough - it needs to be supported and the culture needs to suit your child from the outset.

My wife skipped two years and I skipped one. Neither of us think of it positively. She wasn't academically ready for a two year skip.

Looking back, I am against my skip because I was relatively small in my early teen years, and I was not competitive in sports. I think this physical aspect is something that parents should seriously consider, beyond the is my child intelligent and sufficiently social.

We have chosen not to skip our children. We are fortunate that my children attend a fantastic school system (a recent Davidson Fellow was from our school system). While DD could handle a one year skip, and DS probably needs a 4-year skip, we have chosen to keep in them in their normal grades and supplement through programs like CTY and AOPS.

I would have liked to have been skipped, but it was vetoed by my parents.

I was small in my early teen years and not competitive in sports. I was never going to be competitive in sports because I have two basic skills, endurance and accuracy. Which would make me a good biathlete, I suppose.

I wasn't particularly socially functional in the first place, so I wasn't going to lose what I didn't have by being skipped.

Agree completely.

My DD is a 13yo 11th grader, and she is happy and has friends from 13yo (several of them gradeskipped 9th graders) to classmates who are typically 16-18yo. Kids are such a range of maturities during adolescence that this really-- no, REALLY-- isn't the big deal that administrators seem to think that it is.

DD often feels as though she doesn't belong anywhere-- but she does just fine by regarding her childhood as a time of tourism... and not living "at home" as it were. Her closest cognitive peers are also her closest friends. I think that this is not coincidence, by any means.

Perfectly stated. I think that this is it.

I've been amazed by our school over the years-- when DD had her spectacular meltdown in 8th/9th grade, there was NO attribution offered toward her radical accelerations. They recognized that a child who was REFUSING to do work, but was still earning 100% on what she DID turn in...

probably wasn't suffering from problems caused by a grade skip or three. At least not directly.

The problem was that we couldn't get her appropriate academics soon enough to prevent some of the other (stereo)typical PG problems like inwardly-directed perfectionism. While we know what the problems are, obviously there are limitations which hamper our willingness to place her at her cognitive readiness level. In her case, those were executive skills and innate disposition (shy/wary of strangers/fearful). But they aren't "physical" reasons. THAT part... oh gosh.

I just shake my head at that. Honestly-- adolescence is awkward and awful for most people who aren't pretty narrowly normative. Gradeskipping really doesn't cause those problems-- or alleviate them, truthfully. While our opinions as parents are largely shaped by our own experiences as children... the social landscape is just plain hard during adolescence. Being younger than peers at least gives it a NAME and a reason.

As a teenager, my closest friends were the two other very bright kids in the class. We were different, we knew it, and we basically didn't talk about it.

My then 6 year old skipped midyear from 1st to 2nd, against the will of the principal. The skip evaluation team ganged up on him and forced it :-) (including the current teacher, the receiving teacher, the district psychologist and her intern, and us parents). The principal was appalled but agreed to go along, swearing it wouldn't work and we'd be back in two weeks.

It couldn't have been any more perfect. Receiving teacher was delighted, extremely tall 6 year old son fit in perfectly. He met new friends, finally found kids he got along with and it was a magical solution.

Of course, it was temporary because the vindictive principal was out for revenge. He soon made it very clear that the skip was all we were getting, no matter what and that there would be no further meetings, differentiation or accommodations. So when, even post-skip, my son had exceeded the math curriculum and needed further subject acceleration, we were refused.

So, socially it was perfect, academically it was perfect for a year, and now we're homeschooling for subject acceleration.

I think the very best advice I have ever received on this issue was to plan one year at a time, for the least worst option. It sounds doom and gloom, but you get a lot less disappointment!

In my own experience, it can be a good thing or a bad thing. For me, skipping several grades was a godsend and opened up a world of learning and making my first friends at school (mostly about 5-7 years older than me). I didn't have to work much academically--even after radically accelerating--but, because the cognitive age difference was less, I could finally connect to classmates. I'm an extravert and had been very unsuccessful at making friends in my class before accelerating, and I wound up having awesome friends who included me outside of class and wanted to work with me in class after skipping several grades.

DC21 would not have been able to do that. Intellectually, he was several years ahead. Academically, he was about a year or two ahead. Socially, he struggled with other children due to severe 2E issues. Any classroom, especially one including some of the older bullies, was not a great situation, but having him ahead academically gave him more confidence about himself as a whole.

I think each situation necessitates social, academic, and intellectual considerations and input on what has been working and what hasn't been working.

While this article is rather superficial, it actually raises some valid issues. I actually belong in the camp that does not support acceleration based solely on intelligence. Achievement, physical skills, and maturity are relevant as well.

I was accelerated as a child (young 4 year-old with first graders who were 6 and 7 years old). While I understood the rationale for the acceleration and it may have been the best fit at the time, I don't think that overall the acceleration was necessarily the best way to go. I felt too much "apart" from the other kids and really did not have the requisite maturity, which got me in trouble with certain teachers. I ruled out the possibility of a grade skip for DS9 when it was suggested by his second grade teacher but I do have him subject acclerated in math so that he is in Pre-Algebra as a 4th grader. To me, I see some value for DS to be among his age peers.

I wish I was accelerated in elementary school. But there was no such choice. I did go to science and match school grades 5-8 and that was the best experience ever when it came to school. Not perfect but at least I had 30 kids in class who understood me and whom I understood.

... I was still among the smallest kids when I was 15, I was still just as clumsy and sometimes socially awkward as when I was 6 ... it wouldn't had mattered if I skipped a grade in the growth and social aspect ... but I would had been a lot less bored out of my mind the first 4 years. So, if we end up needed to accelerate, we will. DS4 is average size and pretty clumsy. Definitely not a sporty time, so won't matter with him ... DS2.5 is well built, above average size for his age and we have been calling him "bulldozer" since he started crawling ... even if he skips, he's probably still going to enjoy a spot on the wrestling team or football. He's got that strength, stubbornness and will in him. He will need to look after his older brother who will be picked on probably a lot. I'm guessing we'll spend a lot of time in the principals office with either one of them! lol ... but in our case it won't affect our decision to accelerate or not.

I was accelerated. Best thing that happened to me hands down. I had little in common with my age peers with the exception of sports. Being accelerated gave me a reason to look forward to school - otherwise I resented the teachers and my classmates in my age-level classes.

DS7's grade skip has gone mostly well socially. This year he's gotten in trouble for trying to impress several girls with his sexy ostrich dance (please don't ask), one of whom may have a crush on him now (girl not ostrich), and one bigger boy has attempted to bully him (DS thankfully didn't back down), but overall DS is well-liked and well-adjusted. Tons of kids came to his summer birthday party, and though it seems to have gotten around to all of the kids that he was skipped, almost all of them seem to have treated it as a mild curiosity at most.

DS's acceleration has actually caused more social and emotional negative effects among the parents involved. The mother of one boy chosen to accompany DS on his subject pullout has been frosty as heck upon finding out that her son was chosen for that not because of his ability, but so DS would have a buddy to go with. :| I don't fault her for being put out. And apparently the skip and subject pullout have resulted in many requests from parents to know why their children aren't getting similar treatment. The sad part is that DS needs so much more...

Unfortunately, academically the skip is a bit of a flop, though staying behind a year would have been at least as bad. In order for acceleration to work, it has to at least provide the correct academic level of work, or one has risked negative social/emotional effects for nothing. Thus I wouldn't rate DS's acceleration a success at all yet, except to the extent that it decreased his boredom and convinced him that we're doing our best for him. I see us as midstream in our advocacy for correct academic placement. It's slow going.

My elementary school had an awesome system; I wonder why nobody does this any more. There were four Teams (groups of classrooms) serving five grades of kids. Every Team had a mix of kids from two grades (Team 1 had first and second graders, Team 4 had fourth and fifth graders, etc.).

This meant that quick-learning kids would be able to be grouped with kids a year ahead by design, as needed, with no special scheduling required. Within each team, there were usually three classes, which meant further possibilities, as the kids moved among the classes in that team for reading or math, grouped by ability.

It really solved a lot of problems...

DeeDee

DeeDee, would that be followed up by a possible skip for a child learning with the year-older children, as they transitioned to the next team level? I think that's a great arrangement for ensuring that a single-year acceleration is made as smoothly as possible.

I know it was possible; my parents turned down a skip for me. I was a huge beneficiary of being able to work far ahead of grade level with the quickest kids from the next grade up. IMO this pattern offers much more flexibility than a simple gradeskip, but could be combined with a gradeskip as needed.

DeeDee

Yes, I agree; my parents similarly turned down a skip for me. In my case, I ultimately feel it was a mistake.

Having seen this with my own DD, ability grouping in addition to radical acceleration comes much closer to actually meeting a PG student's academic needs without making the sacrifice unthinkable in social/emotional terms.

There are only problems when it still isn't enough. A 2y skip was not enough for DD-- 3-4 is what we needed, but we were wary of doing so with her too young. We sort of took things a little at a time and eventually wound up at 3y with additional ability grouping. It's gone well academically, though we still see signs that almost none of that coursework is anything like what she actually needs at this point in time (exceptions in AP Lit).

I can't even wrap my head around how damaging not accelerating my child would have been for her.

My DD8 is in fourth grade. Her birthday is such that many other kids her exact age are in second grade. Had she not skipped, she would still have been considered extremely young for THIRD grade.

I can't imagine her in third grade right now, much less second (neither can she; a friend who's a week younger than her is in second, and while this works for her friend, she cringes at the thought of being there herself).

My DD is skipped after half a year of K into a split 1/2 class. So the other children are a minimum of fully 1yr older, over half are fully 2yrs old (for some reason the birthdays in this class are more clustered around July/august than any other class any of my kids have been in). She is so very much better off socially than she was in her age appropriate class. Due to her birthdate, and our odd system in my state, she was going to get 6 terms of K had she note moved to yr1 this year. She would have been one of the oldest in her grade had she not skipped, so theoretically she should have some children in her class not far from her age, but it just hasn't worked out that way, also due to odd circumstance all other grade ones are boys and all the girls are in grade two, so ALL her female peers are fully 2yrs older. And that has been to her benefit, and it's been awesome for her to be placed in a class where she's not struggling at all but she's not at all the top student (yet) either.

We're struggling with the idea of skipping our current 2nd grader. She's young (May birthday) and very small. We've done all of the testing and she's definitely ready academically. She's very happy where she is socially. The school has gone way above and beyond to provide her accelerated 3rd grade gifted math (they actually started in 1st grade with a few kids because of her and have expanded this year).

We've read and the school has stressed that idea that she'll be fine if we skip her but I still am uncomfortable with the idea. I was a high achiever with social issues and know how the social side has plagued me throughout my life to this day, especially with professional networking and career confidence. I want her to be confident among her peers.

I was a PG kid who was never skipped--unless you count the mixed-grade classrooms of my tiny, rural, elementary school. I seriously missed my older peers when they went to middle school.

I had no real peer group until I got to college, and I was suddenly surrounded by people of a similar intellectual level and interests. Keeping me with my same age peers in middle school and high school did me no good whatsoever, socially.

What were the results of that? I was a bit immature when I got to college. My social life was a siren song I could not resist. I didn't learn to balance schoolwork with social life until about three years after I graduated from college. Since my work habits were abysmal as a result of no challenge from first grade to high school physics (and because my private liberal arts college did not inflate grades), my college GPA was under 2.5, and I almost flunked out at one point.

I had kind of the opposite problem. I was so socially immature in college that I was unable to form enough of a support network of friendships to the point where I socially withdrew and collapsed academically.

I also needed work habits, but I definitely needed some ability to function socially.