Hi! I have a highly gifted child who turns 5 in mid-November, which is 6 weeks after the cutoff date for starting kindergarten this year. We are planning for him to go the same gifted school that his 2nd grade sister is attending, but should we apply for early admission so he can start this fall, or should we wait until next year?

I've heard a lot of pros and cons about starting kindergarten early. Some people say you should wait so that the child is more socially-emotionally mature. I also saw an article about a study saying that starting kindergarten early is correlated with increased ADHD (but I don't have access to the original study, so I don't know whether it's a causal relationship or just a correlation -- e.g., gifted kids are more likely to both have ADHD and start kindergarten early -- does anyone have more info on this study?)

Others say kids should be with intellectually-matched rather than age-matched peers, which suggests that starting earlier is better. He will be attending a gifted school, so he will have intellectually-matched peers regardless, but my feeling (based on comparison with his sister and her experience at school) is that if he's the youngest in the gifted class, he will be more likely to be intellectually-matched with his classmates than if he's older. It would also be great for him to be with other gifted kids (with whom he would fit in better personality-wise) and with a teacher who specializes in gifted students.

And we have selfish reasons for wanting to start kindergarten early too: it would be nice to save $12,000 (kindergarten is free, and childcare/preschool are not!), and it would definitely be more convenient to have both kids at the same school and on the same vacation schedules.

Basically, I'd love to start him in kindergarten this fall, and I think he would probably do well and enjoy it, but am I risking lifelong problems like ADHD if we do that? I'd love to hear others' input and advice! Thanks!

Look at the Iowa Acceleration Scale for guidance on early entry to kindergarten. It's the only evidence-based tool out there to assist with this decision.

As to the ADHD,

I think your critical thinking here is right on: is this correlation or causation?

Two additional things to consider:
*If you're referring to the study I've read, the study is not in gifted kids, but comparing ADHD diagnosis rates to the relative age of a child across the entire population of kids. Those kids that are young for grade are diagnosed at a higher rate than those who are young for grade. There wasn't enough data to separate out those who were in fact younger than the youngest expected age in each grade.

*I think there's an additional implication of the study that you're missing: that the ADHD diagnoses are in fact misdiagnoses of immaturity rather than an actual disorder.

But these are population studies, and not an analysis or in any way predictive for your child. For that you should use the IAS. If you are particularly concerned about ADHD, what do you see with regards to attention and executive skills in this child? How does this child function with older kids?

I would also look into the age distribution of incoming kindergarteners in this school. Here, the de facto cutoff is about 3-4 months before the district actual cutoff, so my grade accelerated kid (November bday) is more than 5 months younger than the next youngest boy in his class, and 20 months younger than the oldest kid in his class.

I would consider things like the size of the kindergarten, how welcoming the school is and how likely it is that your son will have to be skipped at some point anyway (it might be less disruptive to front-load the skip).

My DS started at 4.5 and did wonderfully. However, his kindergarten had only 9 kids and the gifted-friendly school was fully behind the early enrollment, so DS got a a lot of individualized attention and when he did occasionally have an age-appropriate meltdown, it was no big deal.

DS did eventually need to skip another grade later on, and having the early start made a 2-year acceleration seem like only a 1-year bump up, which made the later transition easier socially.

My mom refused a skip for me because she wanted to keep me [unchallenged] at the head of my class, but DS has shown the folly of this thinking. Even with the early start and another skip later on, he's still at the head of his middle grade class in many ways, both socially and academically. His teacher recently called him the most mature student she has!

Can your son spend a day in the kindergarten and see how it goes? My son visited for a day at age 3.5 and it went so well that all involved agreed early enrollment was a no brainer.

I've seen some of those studies. They tend to be just focused on the general population instead of the gifted population, which does mean that you might not want to use the general case if you believe you are the exception. In addition, I'd recommend reading this article. It deals with the long term consequences of redshirting (delaying entry) on kids and not just the short term. That is, yes, there is some evidence that delaying entry to school decreases adhd and behavior problem diagnoses, it also never teaches kids how to control impulsive behavior or control emotions. Long term, being the youngest helps much more than it hurts.

That said, do you think he's ready? Another option could be preschool and then entry into 1st grade (skipping K).

There is never going to be a one size fits all answer. It really depends on your child and the school environment. How big will the classes be? How supportive will the teachers be? It will also depend on your child - how will they react in various situations.

We started DS5 in our local GT private school at 4 and most likely his sister will follow at 4. But... his class has only 8-9 children and 2 teachers, and he was asking us to get him out of his daycare where he was so frustrated and unhappy so he was completely on board with the change. And he is one of those kids that just blends in with older and younger kids - he loves his classmates (and the girls especially look out for him). DD wants to go there herself as soon as she is able so again, that is something she has told us she wants.

If DS had resisted the idea of going to this school and was happy at his daycare, we would probably have waited another year ourselves (note, he misses the cutoff here for public school by just days, and we realized we could not wait *2* years for public school when he got so bored and angry about his daycare - which he used to love... until he realized he wanted more).

But... the school makeup is really important (teachers, admin, parents and kids). At DS's school, kids learn that everyone is to be respected regardless of age (we see mixed age groups play really well together and treat each other with respect), teachers are aware of development differences - and asynchrony of these kids - so it has worked really well for us. However, this is not the norm, as we seen with some limited exposure to other school environments.

Based on our experience I think that some ADHD is actually more of a reaction to poor educational fit than actual ADHD in some cases. I'm not saying that ADHD doesn't exist, I just don't think that there are a lot of other things that look like ADHD but aren't and they get misdiagnosed as ADHD.

I haven't read the study so take it for what it's worth. DS's school was CONVINCED he was ADHD back in grade 1. We have two full psych-ed reports that disagree with that. I don't blame them, he sure *looked* like he had ADHD until we managed to get him to a place where his LD is accommodated and the gifted side is actually challenged a bit. He's a whole different student now that that has happened.

As to whether you should or shouldn't start early I'd say go with your gut. The biggest lesson I've learned over the last few years is that these kids change quick. Find the best fit for now and you can always adjust later if you need to. It is a moving target.

My DD has a summer birthday so she is one of the youngest in her private GT kinder class. There are children who are more than a year older in her class. Things haven't been perfect but overall, it's been a positive experience for her. Do I think she would have been okay if we had waited another year? I actually think that could have worked because their curriculum accommodates a wide range of academic achievement.

I'd go for the best social fit.

IIRC, the study made no mention of giftedness or even academic ability of any of the children at all. They simply made a big deal of the utterly banal fact that less mature kids will have less mature executive functioning skills than more mature kids as compared to their average classmates. If your kid has executive functioning weaknesses and they are the youngest in the classroom, chances are higher they might be diagnosed with ADHD because they can't function, and maybe have academic weaknesses as well which may mimic ADHD, too (ie they are squirming and acting up not because they have ADHD but because they are in way over their head) and parents or teachers are pushing for Evals and diagnoses because the kid is struggling. If they have EF weaknesses and are among the oldest kids in the classroom, chances are they have better compensation skills and/or are functioning better because academics are easier for them, ie no ones pushing for a diagnosis because the kid is muddng along just fine. But they're the same kid, just the reference group is a year older or younger and standards are more or less strict.
There are very few studies that make reference about gifted kids just because there are very few gifted kids and it's super hard to get randomized samples of accelerated/non accelerated gifted kids. Those that do exist point to beneficial effects. After all, you WANT the gifted kids to be with the older peer group because you WANT the academic challenge, and the question is whether a kids lack of socio emotional maturity might be a deal breaker.

I'll tell you our experience. My oldest started K a year early. He has a fall birthday so it wasn't all that early. It was fine. The next year we kept him in K again because we liked the K teacher and she did a great job differentiating. The following year he was in a K-1 mixed class. That was fine too but at that point he was in first grade as one of the oldest in his class. This year he started in a K-2 class (oldest in class) but then was moved after a month to a 3-8 class (youngest in class).

My take away is that you do the best you can year by year. If you think he can handle it, go for it. If it doesn't work out, you can make adjustments.

I don't think starting school early CAUSES ADHD although for less ready kids it woukd increase the chance of a misdagnosis of ADHD. If your child is ready physically and mentally then go for it.

THIS, but you'll have to get on having appropriate tests run if you don't have them already. You can figure out the IAS recommendation using the IAS Manual and the appropriate tests.


And this, absolutely. It makes the most sense in terms of the study results and other known problems with ADHD identification and schools.

FWIW my son skipped Kindergarten and entered 1st grade early (late October birthday). He legitimately has ADHD and is ALSO the youngest in his grade, while simultaneously working at a high level for academics. He has 2 classroom teachers job-sharing his class of 27 kids this year (so only 1 at a time, but on different days) and one of them has been just great with him and has glowing things to say; and one of them has complained all year about his "immaturity". He's not immature, he's just impulsive, but his teacher truly doesn't get the difference.

Thanks for all the input! Lots of good points. Hmmm.... I guess I don't know how ADHD is diagnosed. If it's based on a teacher's comparison with other students who happen to be older because a child is accelerated, then the immaturity factor definitely makes sense.

Luckily, the school that DS will be attending has a small class size for kindergarten (max of 12, which is smaller than what he currently has for preschool) and it's a gifted-only school with teachers who are trained for working with gifted children. They are particularly tailored to 2E students and those who might not do well in a traditional school setting, and they are extremely inclusive. So, given all those factors, it seems like a good idea to go ahead and start.