We only ever ran into two of these strange/quirky things that I'd call developmentally-related holes in
ability (as opposed to gaps in knowledge or exposure).
When DD was about 4, she understood negative numbers and subtraction in an abstract/symbolic sense perfectly well-- but COULD NOT understand methods using a number line (effectively a geometric method). Six months later, she enjoyed games like this enormously and was able to use the concepts and extend them.
Second thing is that when she was three-ish, she COULD NOT understand pattern sequencing and predicting the next item in a sequence. Really-- poor thing, the Reader Rabbit Math games that she would play, she was
so frustrated by her complete and total inability to grasp that concept. I remember her CRYING over Reader Rabbit 1st grade math. Four months later, she-- without any real intervention-- found it EASY.
I also concur that with HG+ children who are mastery-oriented, you see a quantum type of behavior in their learning. Well, at least with my DD, we always have. It's very much Goldilocks who suddenly drinks one of Alice's Wonderland potions and finds that NOOOOO, actually-- Papa Bear's things fit her
just fine, tyvm. Even though yesterday the chair was too big, the porridge too hot, the math too hard... that was then.
I can't, I can't, I can't... *BANG* Mastery. (and then it's
I don't need to, I know how, why are you bugging me and wasting my time on stuff I know..)
)
