[*]Study of Exceptional Talent has found that many more children qualify based on the math section of the SAT than on the verbal section of the SAT. This suggests that gifted children can, on average, excel more in math than in subjects that require verbal reasoning. (On a recent thread it was suggested that the modern SAT's verbal section isn't a good measure of verbal reasoning, but many more people qualified for Study of Exceptional Talent before 1995 as well.) It's been hypothesized that this is because high performance in math can come either from strong verbal reasoning or from strong abstract pattern recognition (of the type that the Raven's matrices test measures).
[*] The case for learning the other subjects that I mention is stronger for verbally gifted children than for gifted children whose strengths are nonverbal.
[*] It may be that life experience enables one to understand economics more deeply. But it's equally true that learning economics early could prepare one to learn more from one's early life experiences, on account of seeing relevant economic concepts in them.
[*] I think that for children, improving reading and writing skills is more important than learning the subjects that I mentioned. But one can pick up reading and writing skills through them.
Thank you for posting such an interesting series of questions. It took me a long time to determine that DS10 really had strong math talent in part because he also was strong verbally and does tend to approach math with verbal reasoning more than through strong abstract pattern recognition. Of course, he is only +3 rather than +10 years ahead in math as he is just finishing up Algebra I in school. However, he was capable of more acceleration (at least Algebra I at age 9 instead) at school if that would have been our preference. Had I been aware of this hypothesis sooner I might have been less confused a few years back!
I do agree with you that learning those other subjects (econ, etc.) makes more sense for verbally gifted rather than non-verbally gifted kids as they are the ones more likely to pick up various non-fiction sources out of curiousity. However, everything is inter-related. DS has some rudimentary understanding of economics due to his interest (driven by interest in stock markets and math applications) that are more properly labeled of a non-verbal origin.
I also agree with your last two points quoted above as applied to DS. His understanding is more sophisticated than one might expect but his interests were self-selected and he had someone somewhat qualified (me: degrees in Econ/Math & actively investing) with whom to bounce his ideas. I would not limit a child's interest in areas that presumably require more life experience but I also would not push them on a child unsolicited either.
