Frameist, I think there are multiple possible perspectives on the topic of asynchrony. I would agree that large asychronies can be as impactful subjectively as normative deficits in another individual. In my professional work, I actually do not favor the DSM criteria for SLD --which reference only age-appropriate--when in the context of gifted-level cognition (I prefer ICD-10, which includes intellectual ability--"unexpected underachievement".) ADHD does not really focus primarily on developmental level; the focus is impairment. Likewise most emotional disorders. So I think there is more latitude to consider that impairments in high cognitive individuals may look quite different from impairments in those of average cognition. This is why I generally weight functional impacts more than pure numbers--but I also am careful to look at subtle functional impacts, such as the amount of time and fatigue required to accomplish tasks, impacts on self-concept, and relational challenges--the costs of compensation, in other words. I am sympathetic to your experience, as I have been the first to identify twice exceptionality (or even disabilities in learners who were only above average, and not nominally gifted--though some of those may well have been artifacts of prolonged lack of access to appropriate instruction and remediation) in numerous upper grades students, and regret that 2e is not better understood among my co-professionals.
But some asynchronies do not appear to be associated with impairments. There is no particular reason to consider developmental coordination disorder in a five year old who can generate expressive language at a high school level but is still working on letter formation. (Unless there are motor delays that appear unexpected even for five-year-olds.) It is not necessarily an impairment for a 10-year-old who is conceptually capable of calculus to struggle with managing the independent note-taking, homework completion and classroom etiquette expectations of an university classroom. Not to mention navigating a 40,000-student open campus on their own. These are really environmental deficits that originate from our society's traditional age-grade-locked educational institutions, with rigid curricula. Homeschooling allows parents to adjust expectations so that most aspects of development are in their zones of proximal development, even if they are at very diverse levels.
To your point about executive functions, that is certainly an area that should not be overlooked in any learner, but needs special attention in gifted learners. I appreciate your responses, as they encourage greater clarity in my communications. I also did not really learn study skills until my third round through graduate school, when I already had multiple degrees behind me. Ultimately, it was my higher level of interest and motivation in that field (as well as, I suspect, frontal lobe maturation) that brought me to the point of acquiring some study skills. I applaud you for having had the insight as a child to try to acquire higher-level study skills. My approach to teaching EF in my own children has been to weave practice into meaningful activities of daily life, as well as to stay on top of instructional level so that the intrinsic challenge will create immediate feedback and application of study skills.
In the homeschooling environment (where the OP is), it is possible to highlight the why of study skills much more easily, by attaching them to personally-meaningful goals and consequences, rather than restricting them to checklist items that may feel like busywork. Many of the strategies that parents teach their children for activities of daily living are equally useful for academic tasks. On a practical level, we used schedules, routines and checklists for schoolwork, which were scaffolded by a parent initially (i.e., one-on-one instruction, to numerous reminders, to fewer reminders), and then transitioned gradually to student-managed. Student voice and choice were also important, such as when one DC decided that they would use extreme block scheduling (one entire school day devoted to a week's worth of science, one to history, the other three weekdays for English and math). At the beginning of middle school age, it was predominantly parent-directed, but by 15 or 16 it was almost entirely student-directed. As a side note, the DCs who went into brick and mortar high school had markedly better study skills and self-directed learning skills than most of my students do, I think in large part because of practice managing their own learning and time.
If OP wants specific resources for executive functions and study skills, here are a couple of classic works:
https://www.amazon.com/Smart-but-Scattered-Revolutionary-Executive/dp/1462554598/ Peg Dawson & Richard Guare's Smart But Scattered.
(Their website, with some freebies:
https://www.smartbutscatteredkids.com/)
https://www.amazon.com/Improving-Childrens-Homework-Organization-Planning/dp/0932955509/ HOPS, from the National Association of School Psychologists
But if the OPs actual concern is simply with rote memorization of math facts, rather than broader study skills, the above may be a lot more words than strictly necessary! In that case, Frameist's tips for memorization are probably the way to go.
