My DS is 12 and I would say the GT issues are MORE noticeable in certain ways and LESS In others. For example, all kids have this burst of new academic abilities that is developmental at around this age. DS's burst was so much more than his peers that what was a bit out of sync is now painfully out of sync academically. The kids who were almost able to keep up with him are now light years behind. His thinking did this quantum leap and theirs made a nice solid increase in complexity and ability. They are now able to work on some of the complex concepts that he loves, but he is now able to conceptualize a whole new world of abstraction that will likely always be closed to them.
But on the social dimensions, school has so many more aspects now. In 3rd grade in his school ALL The kids wanted to do well academically and please their parents and teachers, and there was a lot of stress for kids who struggled with academics. Now in 6th grade, the kids are more self-reflective and trying to decide what they are good at and what they want to be good at. Some of the talented drama kids are deciding the Bs in math are ok based on the effort they are willing to put into it. So, diverging priorities make it less evident that my son is GT. The other kids see he dedicates a lot of time to schoolwork and they dedicate a lot of time to other things and everyone is ok about that. (He is in a very nurturing private school, I should add, so the level of acceptance of individual differences is high).
So, while the differences in ability are even more pronounced now than they were in the middle elementary years, it doesn't seem to be so stressful all around.
