Hi Ametrine,
I started a different post about it this in a different thread, but I think you described it better than I did. Dd is much the same, though nearly 6 now. She will clam up UNLESS she did something she really considers valuable and interesting, in which case she will chat about at length (we are the same, specific questions draw nothing other than 'I can't remember' unless she's excited by it). We're slowly working out what dd needs accommodation wise, and as we do that, she is increasingly chatty about her day.
I think realistically, even (perhaps particularly) in a setting where you're hoping for social rather than academic engagement, unless there is something for a gifted kid to really get their teeth in to there's not that much for them to say - because frankly not that much ineteresting (by their standard) happened.
Re 'not performing', dd is the same. She just won't do it. Ask her a question in public she's known the answer to for years and she'll either not respond at all or say's she doesn't know. I suspect in dd's case that it is largely because she's been a novelty for other people since she was a baby and yet this doesn't fit with her own experience as a whole person (sorry, that sounds a bit trite, but I feel quite sure that this is part of dd's experience). These kids are so much more than just the 'smart kid' and yet that becomes their identity outside their family (or at least they are aware that they are different and that 'knowing stuff' is part of that). I think (and this is just my opinion) that being quizzed (even re sometimg mundane) becomes a source of pressure because their ability to respond is where their value to others ends up lying (or at least that's where the child perceives it as lying) and yet it's not really who they are. They sense it, but they're too young to understand it. Put any amount of perfectionism on top of this and it becomes 'a big deal' to respond - even to something simple.
I am prepared to conceded that I may well be reading WAY too much into age appropriate shyness. I just know that my kid, when she's comfortable, never stops talking about stuff - facts/fantasy/random stuff . When she knows she is accepted she loves her ability to think. When she thinks it matters, she's not sure who she's meant to be.
Sorry to have rambled... Long day... Apologies if I've made no sense!
