Regular readers and colleagues will know that I believe in developmentally-appropriate programming and am against birthday-based class assignments. Other than in some large cities, and the independent school sector, the typical approach is the latter which precludes the former. So for many families, the best option for "advanced" students, formerly known as "Gifted and Talented" and today often called "curious" (I kid you not!), is acceleration or skipping a grade. However, a recent study suggests that this is not without risk.
The advantage of and raison-d'être for acceleration is that a student can be academically challenged, and/or that other class and subject options might become available.
The disadvantage is that academic and intellectual readiness is only one part of the puzzle known as a student. We need also to consider social and emotional readiness, and physical readiness (including sexual maturity). Herein lies the problem.
I remember years ago listening to an iterview with an harpist who had her PhD before her twentieth birthday. I don't remember the details, but I do remember her saying that there were social things she did not understand, political, financial and economic matters of which she was unaware, and legal things she could not do for example enjoying a post-performance glass of wine with the rest of the orchestra or going to the post-premier pub evening.
If only she could have found a group of 12 - 14 year-olds at her level with whom she could have gone through school and university.
I have not seen the study referenced above, and the poorly-written article makes it hard to find the exact findings. However one thing is clear. There can be a downside to students being younger than their classmates. Problematically, this article says that this is true of all students which is not and cannot be true. Some students do well being with older peers, some do not and some are unaffected. Similarly, some students with similarly-aged peers are immature, some are more mature and some are much of a muchness.
I suspect the study started from a bias, or at best is conducted with an inbuilt unrecognized leaning. That is, that all children are the same. They are not, and that is why I cannot accept such an arbitrary assignment as a date of birth.
The children studied could have done just as poorly if they had been placed in the grade below. We don't know, and that of course can't be studied. They may have done poorly because of academic, intellectual, social, emotional or physical reasons which have nothing to do with their birthdate. They may have done poorly because they were fine, but their classmates were problematic, or their cohort or their school. They may have done poorly because they were told incessantly that summer babies do not do well, and that others who are doing well were red-shirted which they weren't.
I remember a school district changing their cut-off date to 31 December to avoid such a summer-baby-problem. I would bet dollars to donuts they find the same thing comparing their January births with their December births. The issue in general, and that identified in the study, is not when a student happens to be born. The issue is whether a student has an appropriate program.
Incidentally, while acceleration is often done for "advanced" students and is in fact suggested by the National Association for the Gifted, the opposite known as retention or keeping back for "weaker" or remedial or special needs or exceptional students is not. We know that retention does not work.
One of the evils of No Child Left Behind is that a school is judged, and therefore its funding relies, on the performance of its "weaker" students. As a result, those students receive significant and costly support, leaving less for everyone else. Evidence shows that "advanced" students even receive less support than "average" students. I have heard anecdotally of parents seeking to define high intelligence as a disability so as to use ADA protections. The only option for these parents is selective and/or independent education, or acceleration.
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