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There have definitely been changes over the decades in institutional attitudes regarding early entry and grade skipping. Back in the 60s and early 70s, most districts had an established system for determining who could early enter K/1 or whole-grade skip, with no particular obstacles to using it. But then, most districts also routinely retained students who were learning disabled. So obviously social skills and developmental level were not highly prioritized in either direction at the time.

(And I also effectively skipped fourth on a school change, into a school that placed students by low-mid-high across two grade level clusters--so effectively four-plus possible placement levels for any student in the cluster.) One of the unintended consequences of mandated state-wide testing has been flattening these different options, as schools focus more on making sure as many students as possible meet expectations on the state test. Allowing double-promotion takes high scoring students out of that grade's pool, and potentially lowers their scores in the receiving grade from advanced to grade-level, which is disadvantageous to the building's accountability numbers.

So social skills are not the only factor even now.

Frameist, the data indicate you are not alone. Research on grade acceleration overwhelmingly finds that most who were accelerated would do it again, despite any negative sequelae, and that most matched peers who were not accelerated regret that they were not. (Of course, there are always exceptions, whose experiences are just as valid for them, but these are the group data.)

Wren, nice to hear an update, and especially that she is where she should be.

We have one in a very well-funded STEM PhD program as well, and even there the funding cuts impacted many students in the program. Fortunately, the PI in DC's case had wisely diversified funding, so they were able to maintain all of their students and post-docs by spreading the belt-tightening around a little.

I would agree that admissions is tough. DC had already presented twice at the top national conference in this field as an undergraduate, including an actual oral presentation (not just poster), in addition to presenting at smaller conferences, and had been mentored by a pretty well-connected professor in the undergraduate institution (which otherwise is basically an average regional state uni). TA'd as an undergrad and actually developed some curricula for those classes. Earned dual bachelor's. But out of the top 3 programs applied to, #2 and #3 said no, and #1 was an acceptance, which probably reflects both the competitiveness of applications and maybe some vibe that may have come across in DC's application essays (one of the programs had some question marks regarding cultural fit, based on conversations with current and past graduate students there, and the other was not as well-matched on research interests).

I do think the undergraduate research projects were key, as were the recommendations from faculty with reputations and relationships in their niche fields. Sadly, not everyone has access to these kinds of undergraduate research opportunities, for various reasons, but I think that your DC's pathway has some generailizability, in terms of gaining that research cred through a master's program first. A fair number of unis have plus-one 5th-year master's programs, which I think is likely going to become a more frequent pathway to doctoral programs. It's also a good way to test the waters before committing to a lengthy and intense graduate research experience.

As it happens, I agree that trading off GPA for appropriate instructional challenge is quite reasonable and even preferable. Learning that natural giftings plus effort equals growth is a pretty critical lesson that many GT learners do not experience until much later in life, if at all.

And my point regarding child responsibility is simply that one need not take ownership of decisions that were taken out of one's hands. In my opinion, decisions that involve minors are ultimately the responsibility of the adults, both by statute and morally.

My own experience with acceleration was much as you propose, although not so much for the purpose of getting out earlier, but simply to be in the zone of proximal development with regard to academic placement and rate of learning. I did not actually reach the point where instructional challenge required learning EF skills until graduate school, and did not actually learn to exercise those EF skills until my third round of graduate studies, with assistance from motivation and frontal lobe development (which continues well into one's 20s).

I went through grades 3 through 5 with a skip of 4, with a group of 8. It was standard back in the 60s. Then it stopped. I also was able to do a skip through high school, because you can. I don't think social skills were an issue, it was probably more the times. Drinking age was 18, so there was a lot of drinking in high schools then. So the exposure wasn't good.

I just put my kid in private school for gifted kids, 7 through 12

Haven't been on the board for a while, but now my daughter, 21, is graduating with her masters and going on for a PhD, I thought I would make a post about the current environment for graduate studies with all the funding cuts.

First, I thought my daughter would go to Harvard, since her father was class of 80. But he died when she turned 8, stopped donating and that counts when you are not donating. She ended up at USC and it was the best thing. She is into ocean stuff. So right off the bat, she gets a job at the Museum of Natural History, across the street from USC, doing marine classification. And she gets a work study job in a chemical oceanography, working for a top oceanographer. She does both for 2 years. She dives so then dives and does research for a professor at Wrigley. Publishes a first author paper on kelp bass in her 3rd year. She actually graduates in 3. But stays another year for her masters. She attends COP30 virtually, she publishes more papers. She has a TA job and was a guest lecturer. It takes all of that to be competitive for a PhD. And she wouldn't have had that without USC. Which was great for her program. And I think particurlarly great for aerospace engineering. These kinds of opportunities were specific to USC and when choosing a college, it is important to align what your kid wants to do with a school and extracurricular options that enhance the educational CV.

Had a soft admit for PhD from MIT last year, then the DOGE cuts. The professor that had funding for a PhD student, suddenly did not. So USC allows her to stay another year and gets her masters -- which she finds out is critical for overseas PhD applications. She is also a dual citizen, Canada and US. She applied to China, Australia, Taiwan, Europe, here and Canada. Professors here said that they did not know if they had funding for themselves, let alone a PhD student. Australia funding was difficult. I made her take Mandarin since she was 5, so China and Taiwan were options, but not first choices. She got into UBC, which is tops for her ocean stuff.


But it was really difficult. Funding is tight everywhere. Europe is tightening. And because of increased military spending in Europe, they have tightened up. Getting into a PhD program now is like winning the lottery. You have to build a connection with a professor who can get funding.

In addition, she got a summer internship with WWF in DC. Highly competitive. So Harvard was not her best option. And if her father had not died, she might have gone there. But it wasn't the right place.

And I am glad she has a field that is not business (i worked on Wall St for over 25 years) and in school while the world is going crazy. She is using Claude for her masters thesis, saying it saves her over 100 man hours in statistical and economic research. Her PhD will use AI in the same way, building a system for fisheries data. I think of all the business jobs that will disappear within a few years. She integrated AI into her thesis since I said that is the only way to get a job when she finishes in 4 years.

Anyway, I just wanted to post her experience with college and PhD applications in the current environment.

In my experience, perhaps there may be other methods other than litigation, but ... would it be possible that sometimes one needs a large deterrent in order to either:
1) keep the student in, accelerated
2) transfer them elsewhere?

Also, as per being prepared to change them... perhaps they should not be changed too easily lest the temptation of procrastination? But in hindsight I do not really regret my past, simply wished for an earlier grade skip even if my social/EF skills weren't the best and that is what I would stand on.

I hope that the child matter is not emphasized too deeply because I believe there is partial responsibility for such decisions... but honestly?

It's a bit unpopular, but I'm honestly fine with trading off some GPA in exchange for being accelerated because sometimes life has to move on and sometimes the kid's goal is to get out earlier. In that case would it be possible to look at their not great EF and say OK take him to full time university?

Frameist, it is hard when children do not receive what they need educationally or otherwise. While there might be truth to the thought that you could have done better by taking your own initiative, I hope you remember that you were a child then, and many (if not all) of these decisions were not within your control, so you cannot own the responsibility for those decisions. What I particularly appreciate about your thoughtful posts here is that you are trying to transform the hard lessons learned from your own experience into better proactive decision-making on behalf of the potential future children to which you have alluded (as well as other people's children that you might encounter along the way).

And on the original topic: I too strongly prefer that all options are considered, including but not restricted to grade acceleration. "No" change is still a choice, and not always the do-no-harm one people may think it is. One should also consider that the complications that institutions often claim are reasons not to accelerate are sometimes actually symptoms of the problems that might be solved by acceleration.

Welcome, ardenwood! (And apologies, lepa, that no one responded to your original post.)

I very much hope the VMI did not cost as much as $1000 per administration, even in your pricey area! Depending on how many components were administered and how quickly the student worked, 30 minutes might be generous. But I'm glad it was helpful for your DC's evaluation.

There are other types of dysgraphia, some of which would be better served by other instruments or more comprehensive evaluations, such as by an occupational therapist (if the concern is mainly fine-motor), or in academics, in various aspects of written expression (various types of professionals can do this). Executive functions--which are often impacted in the diagnoses reported by the OP--are also a factor for both mechanics and expressive aspects of writing. For example, self-monitoring errors and dysregulated attention both can explain inconsistent use of punctuation and capitalization, as well as spelling errors. Planning/organizing weaknesses can generate the difference between strong brief writing products and weaker extended writing products. EF would be best evaluated by a psychologist. Communication disorders can also impact written expression, at the level of the actual language being generated, even before it reaches the page, and would best be evaluated by a speech language pathologist.

Bottom line, there are many possible causes of writing weaknesses, some of which are in the category of dysgraphia proper. Among those, there are multiple types of dysgraphia. Appropriate remediation depends on accurate identification of the cause of writing weakness--which also requires an appropriately comprehensive evaluation of all suspected areas of challenge. Sometimes you just happen to pick the right area on the first try, but not always. (Your evaluator probably identified it more quickly because they also had WISC data and the accompanying clinical observations.)

Welcome NT! So sorry no one seems to have seen this earlier.

We do not have a child with this exact profile, but several other posters here do. And yes, this is pretty common.

If diagnosis is of specific value in your situation, have Ehlers-Danlos or other ligament laxity syndromes been discussed? Those are often overlapping with the symptoms you've described. In any case, good to hear that you have access to therapies with or without a diagnosis.

As to why? Many schools view significant impact on function entirely through the lens of grade-level expectations, so a student whose intellectual potential is well above average is still not viewed as underperforming, because they are keeping up with ... grade-level expectations. In some regions, this is actually codified in regulations regarding educational disabilities.

As much as mediation or legal action are things to keep in mind as options for age discrimination at the university level, it is as well to remember that much of the concerning behavior experienced may not originate from the institution itself, but from other members of the university community--which one cannot realistically control with litigation (certainly not without incurring other unintended consequences). In any case, my experience with early entrance/radical acceleration with university students as young as nine has been that not nearly as much age-based discriminatory behavior occurs as one might fear. The more important questions typically are within-student, and focus on social maturity and executive functions, some of which can be scaffolded by thoughtful adults around the student.

For our children, we took advantage of relatively generous access to dual enrollment classes (especially online), as a reasonable compromise between full in-person university enrollment as a matriculated student and adolescent (or younger)-level social/EF skills. I would also agree that AP exams are a viable option both for accumulating college credit and for scheduling more challenging course syllabi in your homeschool instruction. We have also used them.

The child I mentioned upthread was multiply grade-advanced, but then requested a one-year retention back to grade 11 as we were preparing to enter grade 12, because they felt they were not ready for college--but then of course, ended up with a full schedule of dual enrollment classes, entering university as a sophomore the following year--putting them in the same position in the end. My point in this latter anecdote is that flexibility is key, and careful attention to the bursts of development that any children--but especially GT kiddos--tend to have. Make plans, but be prepared to change them, and don't let your anxieties run too far ahead of reality.

First, the updated norms:

2025 NWEA MAP norms update, with data from 2022-2024. This is the mass of data, with practically everything you could possibly want to know--but you might have to dig for it:

https://www.nwea.org/resource-center/white-paper/88182/MAP-Growth-Norms_NWEA_Technical-Manual.pdf/

Quick reference/cut sheet:

https://www.nwea.org/resource-cente...norms-quick-reference_NWEA_onesheet.pdf/

Secondly, to your specific question: it is possible that this is reflects the updated norms. It is possible that it reflects the reduction in support. It is also possible that it simply reflects standard error and/or regression to the mean, and his ordinal position in the right-most tail of the norms, where a very tiny change in raw score can result in a relatively large change in percentile. I would suspect, based on the absence of significant test accommodations for most high-cognitive EF-weak learners, that this is not a reflection of lower support, since his test conditions probably did not change, and the material on the test is very likely below his level of optimal instruction (hence less affected by his instructional environment).

Thirdly, to your not-a-question-more-like-a-comment: that, sadly, is a common aggravation encountered by many learners with EF challenges, gifted or not gifted. So sorry to hear this.

And finally, did they move your DC to a 504 accommodation plan for ADHD? Even if he no longer demonstrates a need for specialized instruction, specialized accommodations are a separate question. The disability is still present and probably still acknowledged. If you can get a 504 in place, one of the options we've used in our building is essential assignments only, with EF-forward or repetitious skills reinforcement tasks excused.

Many gifted individuals experience intense mental activity throughout the day. Constant curiosity, deep thinking, and the tendency to analyze everything can be both a strength and a challenge. While this level of engagement often leads to creativity and innovation, it can also result in mental fatigue if the brain rarely gets a moment of rest.

One simple technique that has helped me is intentionally taking short “visual breaks.” Instead of checking social media or reading more information, I step away from stimulating content for a few minutes. Looking at a calm, empty screen or simply giving my eyes a rest can surprisingly help reset my focus.

Recently I found a minimalist tool that provides exactly that kind of pause: https://blackscreen.space
. It’s just a clean black screen, but it works well for brief meditation, eye relaxation, or even reducing light distraction when thinking through complex problems.

For people with highly active minds, these small breaks can make a big difference. Sometimes the best way to process complex ideas is to give the brain a quiet moment before returning to the challenge with fresh clarity.

That's what I would agree with because of my parents' problems and teacher problems even if I'd say I could have done better by taking my own initiative.

Though even if I had a more asynchronous profile I will still choose the skip in hindsight and fix my problems via discipline or if necessary a psychiatrist to advocate that I am fit for higher education early.

@FrameistElite, it sounds like you weren’t given the opportunities to optimise your learning through your school years. If so, you have my sympathies. My kids experienced both forms of acceleration (whole grade and radical subject) and I do believe the different forms best suited their individual profiles.

In that case I tend to agree as it makes things way easier, however I do not necessarily agree with the unstructured format of self-study as it could very well backfire with credit issues as well as procrastination and complacency issues.

Perhaps Principals are most likely to agree with the least amount of disruption - though perhaps to develop character, willpower and mental willingness to grind perhaps transfer to a school that would allow a grade skip even if the kid would not be the best?

I'm not the best student in my top ranked university even not grade skipped due to a discriminatory conflict before but if I had sent all the documents to that university in 2023 I think I wouldn't have mastered each course within the first few weeks and I wouldn't be at the top or near for every course, but I personally would not have cared.

I think that the way of radical acceleration in the same age group may (bluntly) often be an ivory tower that does not account for the realities of life. I personally would've preferred to be with an older grade even if I wasn't the top in every subject, I would've fought for my position and developed my character. It is a big reason why I enjoy long distance running.

To clarify, I wasn’t suggesting that a child has to be globally advanced to be eligible for acceleration. I merely described that in our experience, it certainly helped make acceleration successful in mainstream schools which do not have any particular policies or provisions for gifted students.

School principals, who are responsible for the welfare of the whole student body, are most likely to support any proposal which minimises disruption. For my son, who remained with his age peers, the simplest way was to allow him to engage in parallel activities as a form of informal acceleration. I’ve given examples before - completing multiplication homework in Roman numerals, other number bases and choosing his own set of spelling words for each week’s activities of finding definitions and writing. By upper primary, he was given a lot of free time on class computers without being singled out - the teachers announced that anyone who finished assigned tasks to standard could spend self-study time on the computers - DS would very quickly finish the set tasks, thus meeting all of the school’s obligations for student assessment, and be allowed to spend a lot of time in self directed study.

The different acceleration strategies for my kids were all seamlessly effective.

Acceleration during the formative school years also sets the stage for the future years. Accelerating the student to the level at which the tasks become challenging for that individual but still mainstream for the cohort may meet their most basic needs at that stage of development, but doesn’t provide as many opportunities for the gifted individual to explore outside the box, whereas keeping DS with his age cohort made it obvious that he was so far ahead of his age cohort and even his teachers, that they were willing to support strategies that let him forge his own paths. At one of our top ranked universities now, he has usually mastered each course within the first few weeks of each semester and is at or near the top of every course, most recently being the only student to correctly solve a fluid mechanics question in a test, because he not only used the conventionally taught approach, but applied what he called a ‘sanity check’ and then critically analysed the solution to find a common trap of thinking. That is exactly our hoped outcome of education.

I'm not a parent yet, but perhaps I'll have kids in the next few years. For now, I tutor students, and many of them have asynchronous development and yet wish to skip grades.

There have been a few main issues that seem to recur:

1) Rigid authorities
I knew many of them would say the students have to be mature socially, emotionally, and physically (compared to their age) as well as academically to skip 1-2 grades, but I know this isn't quite true. Yet some of my students think to not skip because the gap felt insurmountable even when perhaps it might not be. Also I knew many students with disciplinary issues who still wanted to skip - is there a way to advocate for them?

Any tips or help for this? Theoretically they can improve their aerobic capacity and listen to learning materials by Zone 2 and 3 runs and their top end speed by Zone 4 and Zone 5 runs? As for social and emotional maturity perhaps we could find some tolerant people to help improve their social-emotional maturity?

2) A lack of study skills
As similar to Faylie's post - How to get child to actually "study" - I have seen this in many students who think the gap is insurmountable but actually it can be closed with study skills and discipline. Yet I knew students who can't even finish 5 minutes of proper study in one go - any tips for improving this? If they cannot even finish 5 minutes of proper study then how would one manage 2-4 hour exams later on in education?

3) Social backlash (potential discrimination and harassment).
Especially if the students appear to struggle at first even if the struggle was merely temporary that could be fixed by improved studying, or assessing them for 2e (taking into account their developmental level, not chronological age)? Some people said that if they were struggling in their age grade and things they need to learn without the pressures of university-level academics (for middle and high school students) but the alternative is that the pressure of university-level academics is a wake up call for them to improve before they may be on a course of destruction. Does anyone know how to distinguish between these? In some cases the social backlash could meet the threshold of discrimination and harassment so perhaps labelling and official psychiatric letters declaring minors fit for college could be necessary?

I think about this a lot, with regard to my 10 year old.

The good news is, I think the ridiculous pressure for high schoolers to aim for "Stanford or bust" is going to be reduced by these trends. Plenty of recent elite college grads who cannot land a job because they didn't necessarily follow their passion and did something like CS or Finance, hoping to become an entry level software engineer or iBanker. But those are two of the jobs - especially at the entry-level - that AI can already do very well. It may also inspire many to forgo elite colleges altogether, take a harder look at professions (both white collar and blue collar) which don't place as much weight on how selective the college is.

Lots in healthcare (including the allied health professions) on this list:

https://www.uscareerinstitute.edu/blog/65-jobs-with-the-lowest-risk-of-automation-by-ai-and-robots

I see this post is old. But replying in case this is helpful to others.

My 10 year old was just identified as HG and diagnosed with dysgraphia. He has issues with capitalization and punctuation (among many other issues with his handwritten work).

We are in the very expensive Bay Area and it did not cost that much for the educational psychologist to administer a test called the Beery VMI. (Less than $1,000; may have even been less than $500 but it's hard for us to separate out the time she spent on the WISC-V versus the Beery VMI.) That really helped crystallize the dysgraphia diagnosis.

You should ask around and see if someone can administer the Beery VMI and if so, how much that would cost. The test I think took less than 30 minutes to administer (although I was not present, so cannot say for sure), so it's not a high-hours request of a testing psychologist.

Our fourth grader was recently diagnosed with dysgraphia and identified as HG, per the WISC-V and the Beery VMI (which put him in the 7th percentile in terms of Motor Coordination and 18th percentile in terms of Visual Motor Integration.)

He attends an independent Catholic P-12 school, which fortunately has robust resources for learning plans and accommodations. It is not a gifted or gifted-friendly school but based on our initial meeting with the principal, it sounds like they are very open to accommodations even though our son's academic performance is high. (They believe every child should be allowed to demonstrate their full potential.)

We are starting OT in a couple of weeks so we will learn more; but it seems our son's issues are more fine motor based more than anything else.

I am curious if those on this forum have personal experience - either as a parent of a dysgraphic learner, or perhaps being dysgraphic themselves - with software applications to assist with speech-to-text, math (e.g., ModMath), mind mapping (e.g., Miro), or writing generally. And if so, which ones would you recommend for a bright fourth grader, based on your direct experience?

It is overwhelming the number of applications out there. Which is a great thing, of course. Thank you in advance for helping us crowdsource a more curated list that I can then go further research!

While I concur that grade acceleration depends on the child, I do not necessarily believe that the threshold should be as high as sometimes stated. Even if they may not be globally advanced, I do not necessarily believe it would be the right call to keep the child with age peers, especially if the kid calls for it and is willing to sacrifice to make such acceleration happen.

There is a reasonable range of behavior and maturity, and if a school is not willing to accept a reasonable range, perhaps that isn't the right school for you. Not saying there is any wrongdoing, but personally, I do believe in giving people an opportunity and also giving grade acceleration to those students who may not be globally advanced. That is because they can accommodate them.

The appropriateness, or otherwise, of grade acceleration really depends on the individual child. My daughters were both early entrants and thrived, mainly because, as their school principals in both primary & secondary schools commented, no one would ever have guessed that they were younger than their classmates as they were globally advanced, so much so that when they competed at sports in their correct age group, their eligibility would often be questioned by other parents.

My son’s development was initially more asynchronous and it was absolutely the right call to keep him with age peers and advocate for radical subject acceleration.

I don't really resonate with the concerns around grade acceleration because I believe that the "social-emotional impacts" that people are often worried about may be overblown (at least 1 grade) and a larger problem that I am concerned about is potential harassment or bullying rather than any social emotional immaturity. Sometimes a grade skip does force accountability which I very much enjoyed and I am more concerned with some red tape rather than these vague concerns.

If there are social emotional concerns perhaps they could be resolved... maybe some acting training for advertising, or even... advocacy for labels, if only to give a certificate that the person does not have a disability so people can stop mistakenly thinking the child is disabled (in some cases)

Feel free to ask though you may need to advocate and get the adjustments necessary