G&T more common in maths?

[LetItGoToRuin]

In this thread, SirFred commented that it seems more common for children to be ‘gifted’ in maths. S/he went on to speculate as to whether this is because “that is the area where time and practice are less important than in others”. I thought this statement deserved its own thread.

Some questions to get us going:

• Is your child gifted across most/all academic subjects, or do they favour one strongly?
• Did their highest ability subject change through childhood?
• Which subject stood out soonest at school?
• Which subject causes the most problems, in terms of school providing adequate differentiation for your gifted child?

Ds was spotted as gifted as verbally he was very ahead and would make links in areas that were not normal. He is gifted in maths and reading but struggles to write as he has very bad dcd(dyspraxia). His writing looks like that of a doctor and thankfully he now uses a laptop at school, on which he can easily write three or four sentences.

He was spotted as g and t by the teacher when he was working out phonics with no help at either home or school and could read fluently in three or four months after starting school as a non reader.
He has Sen though so things other children can do he can’t and is very asynchronous. For him, he was born this way and unless the skill is related to fine or gross motor he seems to learn in very few repetitions.

So my hypothesis is actually that it's not more common in maths at all, it's just that society forces inteligent kids into a maths pathway which is very self re-enforcing. Because primary maths is so much more exactly aligned with fluid intelligence, the intelligent kid will be identified in maths and progress so much faster in the simplistic maths curriculum that everyone soon says "little Jo is years ahead in maths"

That means the praise and encouragement and mental re-enforcement of the young kid re-enforces maths as the thing to focus on, and these high fluid intelligent kids then continue down that pathway and therefore don't invest the time to build the crystalised intelligence that are needed for most other subjects.

To test my theory, I think we would need to look at what happens to the "gifted in maths" later in school, once the maths is less simplistic and not simply aligned with fluid intelligence. Do all these gifted in maths find set theory or statistics or graph theory or ... equally as easy and as exciting as they do primary maths?

I was "gifted in maths", but I had little interest in it, could still cruise an A-level without any work outside the lessons, and check everyones homework in the 5 minutes before the lessons, certainly always working "years ahead" in primary that is often the measure of giftedness here. Yet my true gifted subject is different, the one I actually care about, the one I essentially taught myself as my teachers had nothing to say, had I been less self-centred and done what I cared about, I could've easily been encouraged down the maths pathway, I had to fight to avoid it.

So I guess my conclusion is so many of these gifted in maths are because we take gifted children, and decide maths is their thing, and not because there are more that are gifted in maths.

For my DS he has fitted your hypothesis. His teacher in P3 ( P2 age) said that if it was not maths people would talk about his literacy. As a linguist I feel it may have upset her about. It does seem that if a child does well in an area it can be self fulfilled. They are given more to learn/do in school and then as they spend even more time on that area they get even better. Other subjects are not focused on as much.

SirFred’s hypothesis seems to work for most of the stories on this board.

My DD doesn’t quite fit the mould. This may be because she’s not actually gifted, but is simply a bright child in a distinctly average cohort who shows her ‘brightness’ easily in speech, reading, understanding and writing.

Does anyone have a child that is gifted academically, but NOT exceptionally able in maths? I don’t mean an exceptional musical or artistic talent.

I don't know, I can't help feeling that DS might grow into maths and perhaps start displaying 'gifted' level abilities when maths becomes more interesting. At the moment he just can't be bothered. And quite definitely nobody is 'pushing' him into extending/developing his maths at school... But maybe that's just because his school is not very good, or perhaps he is not as able as I think :)

The other thing is early reading. Many highly intelligent children do learn to read early and easily, and often this is one of the first very clear and publically noticeable (and 'measurable) aspects of their general intelligence. But then, many early readers are not 'gifted'. And nearly everybody learns to read eventually, so we tend to see it not as an indication of giftedness, but merely of 'being ahead'.

Maybe it was because the particular teacher was more focused on reading than on maths, but in DS' reception class it was definitely ability in reading that was picked up on and extended, and maths was largely ignored. As in, the teacher noted that DS (and other children) had already achieved end-of-year expectations, and so did not need to learn anything else for the year. She did not even consider if they had any abilities beyond that.
And with the mastery thing, it can be a bit hit and miss. It seems many teachers (incl. at our school) are lead to completely ignore anything a child can do/could potentially do that is beyond the year group curriculum. And the 'depth' extension depends very much on the particular teacher's abilities/interests.

Anyway, my experience so far (lower primary) has been that early reading and good vocabulary have been seen as indications of 'intelligence' and generally lauded and supported, but on a 'wait and see' basis regarding if they child should be seen as 'gifted' or just 'ahead, others will catch up'. But I have seen no evidence that the intelligent children (be they apt at maths or not particularly) are 'pushed' into maths.

Very possible to have a gifted child with discalculia.

Sirfred, this is not my experience with DS.

From toddler age, maybe around 1, DS would always choose to play with toys that had some form of building/maths/engineering thing such as puzzles, shape sorters, he would put cars in category of colours, he would make towers of bricks that were the same shape. We realised that his favorite books were the ones with page numbers and he would point at the numbers (instead of the images) when we were reading to him. He would make playdoh shapes and order them in order of size. He would sit in front of clocks (digital or analogue) and stare at them for ages. From the moment he could walk he would walk up to car number plates and point at the numbers, not at the letters. He would point at door numbers. He would stop in the middle of a pavement if he'd spot a shape on the road and would look at us as if to say 'what's this shape'. He was a very late talker and didn't say a single word before the age of 2.5 and didn't say his first sentence before 4 years old.

It's not school that motivated him to enjoy/be good at maths, and to be honest it's not us either. We were desperate for him to talk! It was so clearly an innate ability/interest. Later on I trained as a childminder and was looking after children for 10 years and I never, ever met another child with an interest and ability that was so strong, so young.

He is now G&T in maths, but good at everything at school, probably in top 3 in his class in every subject. He is well above everyone else in his class in maths even though we have never had any private tuition for him and he learns pretty much at his own pace and follows his own interests in maths, computing, coding, music, and other areas that are somehow related to maths.

Forgot to say, he is in year 6, 11 years old.

My five year old seems to have an amazing intuition for mathematical concepts. He understands how to square a number, has learnt all the series (billions quadrillions) and seems to understand negative numbers. And I think this is why he’s able to do long multiplication and solve simple algebra, it’s almost like a language he was born fluent in.

He complete pushes it himself, I don’t want to hothouse him but he is fascinating in his passion for it

Yes Weird, I remember having a discussion with DS when he was around 5 with him asking me what was the largest negative number!!

@twofishfingers

Your son sounds so like mine, down to the fascination with clocks. How does he fare socially? My son is poor but fundamentally not very motivated. He had a total crisis at three when he realised he’d never be a clock, it was heartbreaking at the time but funny now. Not diagnosed asd YET but he definitely is

I feel so pleased that this board exists, I had no idea. It’s pretty lonely having a bright child because it just sounds like I’m boasting. The only person I can really talk to freely is my mum !

They are definitely born that way.

Weird, he is ok, struggles with some social situations but adapted very well and is coping.

He struggles with new situations and will always try to know what's next, doesn't mind his schedule changing as long as he knows what's coming. He struggles with large groups of children (he hates chaotic situations) but is absolutely fine if it's just 2-3 kids. He won't do things like sleepovers or overnight school trips they are a nightmare for him.

He was diagnosed with a speech disorder also at 4 years old, so his language has affected his confidence a bit, but mostly I think he is an introvert by nature. He loves things like coding and music, plays three musical instruments quite well, and loves physical activities like football. At school it took a while for them to recognise his talent as he was so quiet, but from year 3 onwards he started to really stand out as he would find all sorts of different ways to sort out a maths problem, always trying to create new ways of finding a solution, learning some concepts exceptionally quickly (or figuring them out himself), etc. He also has excellent visual memory so things like spelling are super easy for him, but I don't think he is G&T in English, just in maths.

Two fish, your ds sounds very similar to mine. I think my ds is natural code breaker/pattern reader. Clock and page number/index was his favorite too. And he always sorted everything into category.
He started learning music later, but his sight reading is brilliant too.

I agree with Tomorrow, that they are born that way. I couldn't make my ds do what he doesn't want to, or not interested in.

I definitely agree that it is for some reason more common / easier (? Probably the wrong word) to be gifted in maths. There are always those kids in the news doing their maths a level at 9 years old, but you never see that with English literature, history, classics etc.

I teach English at secondary and there's often a real lag with very bright kids between their maths level and the English one, generally down to the real need to have emotional maturity and a bit of life experience to really click with literature. So often they think that they are 'bad' at English because they don't fly through it getting 100% scores in the way they do in maths and science. Which I guess leads them further down that path?

haha two fish, you have reminded me of some of the quirks my maths mad ds had when he was young. (age 10 now)
he liked clocks , patterns, sorting, code breaking. he preferred watching countdown than CBeebies! which I found really odd at the time.
my first memory of his love for maths was about 9 months. he was sat in his high chair and I counted some peas on his tray and lined them up. I remember a huge, manic smile across his face. his arms were flapping with glee- he looked like a baby bird in a nest seeing mummy bird arriving with a worm!! it was honestly like a part of his brain had lit up for the first time when presented with counting!!

he had speech delay. though counting to 3 aloud was achieved long before he could say mummy (age 2). but had a huge spurt in speech age 2.

he is being assessed for hfa/dyspraxia/dysgraphia. tho actually he is quite social really, its just due to the difficult handwriting that we are seeking investigation. Pokemon is great for him due to all the classifications. I just found out the creator is autistic too.

anyway yes I think some brains are wired for mathematics

Ah, LetIt, DD is the case study you are after. Reading age years above chronological, able to write complex and funny prose, reads 300+ books a year. Has always gravitated to books even before she could read.

But why, her teachers ask one after another, is her maths not as good. She can grasp the ideas relatively easily, but just doesn't have the instinctive grasp of numbers which I and her dad both have and had as children. She's turning out to be better at algebra than arithmetic, but can solve a gcse level problem and then confidently assert that 3+3=9. I suspect there is some dyscalculia in there but she's bright enough to get through it so will never be diagnosed.

That's anecdata, but SirFred I think there is some truth in what you say, but that this happens because children, generally, find it easier to excel in maths which doesn't necessarily need any life experience, whereas the humanities do. We continually battle with this with DD, who wants complex books but doesn't yet have the emotional vocabulary and understanding to deal with what is in some of them, so it's a constant balancing act.

My lg was very good with speech from young, picked up phonics easily and was reading cvc words around 3.5yo. Could read grey/brown bb at 60m old.
She finds reading itself easy. Because of a large vocabulary and understanding that the words should fit what she knows and the context.
Maths however i was expecting her to be better at. As she has a good memory. I think it is because she has adhd tendencies and doesnt concentrate. So it's more adding/subtracting that isnt coming easily. Also they seem to like to partition numbers to add/subtract and she is happier with number lines etc. Im hoping doing sums etc comes more easily. She could do 2,5,10 chants almost instantly, but actually working out the 2x5 will probably take longer.
I think it may self fulfil as once they find something easy/fun they want to do more. So here it is reading, she loves fiction and whilst not resistant to maths it's not as much fun - yet. We really dont do much maths at home.
I think as well being SB the maths is 'relatively challenging' in some ways if you are expecting it from just the basic lessons with 30 kids.

I think a lot of academic intelligence is memory. Even maths at primary.
Later doing ok is about following rules. Probably why it suits asd people.

People don't consider early reading to be g&t because we dont really test reading later in it's comprehension, inference, spelling grammar and imagination. None of which correlates exactly to being able to hear phonic sounds/blend and deduce a word like say 'pull'. Also remembering exact definitions of words.
Interestingly i think dd may have odd/pda maybe she is rebelling against all the maths rules. For some reason she doesnt tend to do that with reading, or the story is enough distraction. It was the same with writing.

My lg was very good with speech from young, picked up phonics easily and was reading cvc words around 3.5yo. Could read grey/brown bb at 60m old.
She finds reading itself easy. Because of a large vocabulary and understanding that the words should fit what she knows and the context.
Maths however i was expecting her to be better at. As she has a good memory. I think it is because she has adhd tendencies and doesnt concentrate. So it's more adding/subtracting that isnt coming easily. Also they seem to like to partition numbers to add/subtract and she is happier with number lines etc. Im hoping doing sums etc comes more easily. She could do 2,5,10 chants almost instantly, but actually working out the 2x5 will probably take longer.
I think it may self fulfil as once they find something easy/fun they want to do more. So here it is reading, she loves fiction and whilst not resistant to maths it's not as much fun - yet. We really dont do much maths at home.
I think as well being SB the maths is 'relatively challenging' in some ways if you are expecting it from just the basic lessons with 30 kids.

I think a lot of academic intelligence is memory. Even maths at primary.
Later doing ok is about following rules. Probably why it suits asd people.

People don't consider early reading to be g&t because we dont really test reading later in it's comprehension, inference, spelling grammar and imagination. None of which correlates exactly to being able to hear phonic sounds/blend and deduce a word like say 'pull'. Also remembering exact definitions of words.
Interestingly i think dd may have odd/pda maybe she is rebelling against all the maths rules. For some reason she doesnt tend to do that with reading, or the story is enough distraction. It was the same with writing.

More kids are labelled as gifted in maths because there is funding available from the government for stem subjects. Science, technology, engineering and maths all of which have maths as the core subject. There are more programmes available for maths students, I worked on one for 20 years myself.

Cornishclio, is this STEM funding for G&T still available, and does it apply in primary, even at KS1?

Even if funding is available for STEM in primary, I doubt this is why maths ability tends to be noticed earlier. Are teachers actively looking for G&T maths children in primary, or is this a secondary thing?

I think that if your child is truly g and t in maths you don’t have to look as it’s apparent how quick they get the concepts

Does anyone have a child that is gifted academically, but NOT exceptionally able in maths? I don’t mean an exceptional musical or artistic talent.

I think I was that child. Found it extremely easy to learn foreign languages (including dead ones), read history books written for adults, read literature in 4 different languages by the time I started secondary school- basically anything to do with words. Also did well on verbal logic.

But pretty average in maths, if that. Wouldn't say I had dyscalculia; I was ok-ish with numbers, but really bad at anything spatial, so my geometry was pretty rubbish.

My db otoh was gifted in everything: languages, STEM subjects, maths, music, even sport.

We ended up, funnily enough, working in more or less the same field, having trained at the same department at the same time. But we don't tackle problems in the same way: he is more analytical, I am more associative. Gets result either way, but coming along different paths.

I don't think either of us got that much attention at school because we never played up. I never suffered from boredom, because I was too busy thinking about all the exciting things I was learning in my spare time, and he never played up because he was very amiable.

My sister was similar to cory. She was never interested in numbers, though she wasn't bad at it. Very funny both my parents have number/maths related jobs. Also she had no social difficulty or quirky nature at all.