Acceleration for Gifted Children: An Interview with W. Thomas Southern

W. Thomas Southern, Ph.D., is a professor and director of gifted programs at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He is also co-director of the Center for Evaluation Services at BGSU and co-author of the book, The Academic Acceleration of Gifted Children.

Paula: Can you define acceleration?

Thomas: Sidney Pressey's definition of acceleration was encountering curricular material at either a faster pace than normal or at ages earlier than normal. For us, I think we can operationally think of acceleration as one of two things: either we move the students through material faster, such as providing two years of mathematics completed in one year, or, we give them advanced content at younger ages, such as providing 9th grade algebra to 6th graders.

Paula: A lot of people think of acceleration primarily as grade skipping, but one of the points you make in your book about acceleration is there are many different forms of acceleration. Could you speak to that? Educators and parents need to understand there are many different possible ways a child can end up moving at a faster pace or being ahead of the typical grade curriculum.

Thomas: There are many accelerative types of programs. In some, schools are basically trying to recognize what a child has already learned or simply respond to a student that stands out because of his or her extreme ability in a particular area. That situation often involves responding to a child by having him or her skip a grade or enter a level of schooling early. These children become obvious to educators as needing a different curriculum and special educational program.

There are other kinds of programs, extracurricular programs, where the students go in the summer, for example to Northwestern, and remain with their chronological peer group. They are in a different setting, taking classes typically given to older students and/or doing the classes in shorter periods of time. There is content acceleration or subject matter acceleration where a student stays with chronological peers most of the time in school but has material brought to him that is different and more advanced only in the area that she/he is talented. So, a student may go to a higher grade for instruction in math or reading or may receive material that is different from the other students in those particular areas within his/her regular classroom.

Another type of acceleration, popular in my home state of Ohio–which exists by legislation in 22 states across the US–is when a student in high school also enrolls and takes college classes. This is also a form of acceleration.
Paula: This is also called dual enrollment or sometimes, "post-secondary enrollment."Thomas: A big concern with accelerative options is that a younger student is placed with older students and that that may have some potential social implications. In many of the options that fit the definition of acceleration, however, the student remains with her/his peer group for much of the time or receives instruction in private settings unobserved by chronological peers.

Paula: How frequently are acceleration options used by schools with children to accommodate this situation?

Thomas: I would say it is a relatively rare occurrence considering the potential for its use. There are lots and lots of students who are in some sense mismatched with the curriculum–they have already mastered the material they are being taught. Schools are really reluctant to do grade skipping and early admission to high school or things like that because they view this as having a potentially dangerous social and emotional impact. They also are reluctant to do modifications like content or subject matter acceleration because they do not have a way to manage it. They feel it is asking the teacher to do multiple preparations with the same group of children. Since they lack the mechanisms to do it, they simply resist it. So even if you want to bring material down to the student, you frequently meet with some resistance because the school does not want to impose on the teacher, or the teacher does not want to be imposed on to do that. Additionally the teacher may not have the expertise to provide that instruction. Another obstacle is that schools are afraid that accommodating one child establishes a precedent. This is something I run into frequently when I work with parents. The school does not want to start a precedent that says kids should have access to material they are ready for at any time. They feel that is Pandora's box.

Paula: Has it always been unpopular, or is it particularly out of favor currently?

Thomas: Well, it is interesting. There are periods of time in history when acceleration has been considered relatively normal. If you think about one-room rural school, for example, people went through books and material at whatever pace they wanted to because they simply had that range of material available. When you mastered it, you mastered it. At the turn of the century, however, we had to educate a large number of students, and we were also trying to assimilate a very large number of immigrants. Right before World War I, between 1890 and 1915, the US had the largest percentage of immigrants in the history of the country. If you want to educate all those children and you want to assimilate people into the culture and acculturate them, schools would seem to be the place to do it. The easiest way to organize this large influx of children was by age, and it was then that grade and age grouping for instruction was introduced and became a stable component of our educational system. Additionally, we wanted to keep children in school, which was now mandatory, particularly at the time of the Great Depression. During the 1940's with the onset of World War II, there was a huge demand for manpower. Then acceleration became much more favorably viewed again. People said, "Oh wait a minute, we can take medical school and condense it from four to three years and produce more doctors for the war effort."

During WWII there were plenty of places for people out of school, and we wanted to make young people productive as quickly as we could. Then after the war, during the times of American concern about Cold War issues, acceleration was viewed favorably because we wanted to maximally educate citizens so the US would be competitive with other world powers. In the late 1980's and 1990's, the Cold War threat kind of disappeared.

My favorite period was the 1950's when we had both the perceived threat of the Cold War, but we also had a baby boom. During that period, you had educators writing major papers saying that early admission to kindergarten and first grade was a terrible thing. At the same time, other educators were saying that moving through high school faster is beneficial. The literature is really kind of schizophrenic at that point. However, it is clear that views on acceleration reflected the social and political circumstances and concerns of the time.

Paula: What does research say about the practice of acceleration?

Thomas: By and large, the academic achievement of students who are accelerated is fairly well documented and very positive. Obviously, kids who are moving more rapidly through content or have been given more challenging content than they would normally receive at their age are learning more, and this is substantiated by many research studies.

The research also shows that children who are accelerated tend to be achieving at the top of the new grade placement. Because we are kind of conservative about the way we approach acceleration, we only accelerate those kids who are extraordinarily precocious. And these children are probably working more than one year above their current placement, so they are still performing exceptionally well in the new, accelerated placement. Almost all the teachers and administrators we interviewed agree that academically they don't see a big problem with acceleration. However, these same educators cite the concern of social and emotional development. Nearly every study that looks at social and emotional development has a lot of problems defining it, but typically these studies find no effect, positive or negative, of an accelerated placement on kids socially or emotionally. It is apparently neutral.

Some children who are accelerated could have more difficulty socially. However, research shows that kids who have had social difficulties before acceleration will also have them after, and kids who do not have difficulties before acceleration will, similarly, likely not have difficulties after acceleration.

Paula: So acceleration per se had nothing to do with social adjustment.

Thomas: Right.

Paula: Do educators just simply not know the research, or is it more a political issue that they just refuse to base practice on research and use acceleration as an option for gifted students? Why is there such a mismatch between research and practice?

Thomas: We found most people we talked to in our initial interview ten years ago, or longer now, could not cite a single authority on acceleration that had produced results that were valid, but they could cite a few people who had written opinion pieces. They might cite David Elkind who talked about the "hurried child" or they might talk about one of the researchers that used the term.

James Uphoff is famous in the Midwest for saying that no child should go to kindergarten before five years and six months and that even gifted children are more likely to be in special education, emotionally disturbed, etc., if they go to kindergarten before that age. The research he cites really doesn't hold up. He makes no attempt to separate kids who are gifted in that sample–or at least he does it so inadequately that you can't tell what the effects are for different groups of kids. That became a real popular idea. There are constant yearly efforts in this state, for example, to put mandatory age limits on kindergarten. The people who have done good research showing positive academic effects of acceleration and no documented social and emotional harm from acceleration are not quoted in the popular press because this doesn’t make news. So, often opinion on this practice outweighs the real research evidence in terms of its use with children.

Paula: Is there any particular accelerative practice where the research is not clear about the effects on children?

Thomas: Yes, research on early school entrance is an area where you get striking differences in the research outcomes of different studies. Part of that is because the large-scale studies on this issue generally did not make distinctions between highly gifted students and other students who entered school early when they looked at outcomes. Another issue that I think affects the research findings is the purpose of doing the research in the first place. School districts that are overcrowded, for example, and start doing studies about the effects of early admission, may have some kind of hidden agenda that is driving the study. I remember a study in Michigan where they concluded there was a problem with early entrance because only 20% of the students admitted early showed a great deal of leadership. What percentage did they expect and is this a bad outcome, anyway? The research on early school entrance is fraught with methodological problems and therefore does not speak clearly to the issue of the appropriateness of this practice for young gifted children.

I think that the reason parents seek early admission is very diverse as well. You have a mixture of motives. Some parents are saying my child is ready for school, wants to go to school, and is very accomplished. And there are also parents wanting the option of early entrance because it will make their schedules easier if they are both employed, or will eliminate child care costs, say for a single parent who is struggling economically.

Paula: The main reason that educators give for not accelerating children is their concern about the social and emotional development of the children, but aren't there also concerns about the impact of removing the bright kids from the classroom – about the effects on the kids who remain behind?

Thomas: Although that tends not to be cited as frequently, you do hear teachers talking about depriving their classes of role models. For example, if you take all the really good readers out and down the hall to a high level reading group, what happens to those that are left? And the answer I usually give is that it probably provides a lot more opportunity for the kids who are left in the classroom to express themselves and contribute. There is an interesting study that was done in Kansas that looked at the amount of teacher-student interaction, with and without the gifted kids being pulled out. The non-gifted children who were left in the classroom actually got a lot more positive notice from teachers after the gifted students left because they had more opportunities. Also, gifted students who are bored can present a very difficult management issue for the teacher. If they are not engaged, they can become a discipline problem.

Paula: What would you say to a parent who is considering acceleration for their child? Are there particular characteristics that make this a better option for a child?

Thomas: I usually tell parents the one primary consideration I have–is the child anxious to do this? Some children don't want to be accelerated because the prospect isn't exciting, in which case then the more radical salient forms of acceleration probably are not going to work very well. You can still bring the appropriate content to the student, however. That is, if a student can't go to the material for whatever reason, then bring the material to the student.

Another consideration is the receptivity of the teacher with whom the child is going to be placed. Is that teacher resistant or totally opposed to the process? There are teachers that honestly feel acceleration is a bad thing to do. They will unconsciously try to prove this and that is probably not a good situation for the student.
We also have some other concerns that we talk to parents about in terms of siblings. Often having a child accelerated into a sibling's class causes major difficulties. When a sibling has been a potential issue, we have suggested to parents that they use a different school, if possible, for one of the siblings.

Children who are extremely anxious about new kinds of situations and problems, generally speaking, won't want to be accelerated anyway. But, if you know your child has that kind of reaction to new materials and situations and they are uncomfortable, then you probably have to try other kinds of means to meet the same end.

Paula: I have heard stories from parents who have felt that acceleration was a good option for their child, but then have difficulty implementing it within the school in a way that was supportive for their child. So if parents were going to pursue this with the school, what would you recommend they ask for in terms of the way it is done? There may be an unknown expectation on the part of the school that the kid would do very well right away. So the minute the child has difficulty, it may be used as evidence that this was not the right thing to do. How do parents manage that process?

Thomas: One of the things I suggest parents might want to do is ask who in the school will be the contact person, who will be responsible for monitoring the situation? There has to be a "case manager," or someone who says to the kids and parents, "here is what the issues are and here are some things we might want to think about." I often tell parents that acceleration decisions are revocable. If things don't work to your satisfaction, and the child is uncomfortable, then you can move back again. And having someone to sit and talk with at the school who is responsible and who has some advocacy consideration, as well, is helpful. I recommend that parents specify a period of time, six, nine weeks, after the initial placement when they will evaluate how it is going.

There are other more complicated issues—such as determining when a child has reached mastery. Is 100% correct the level of mastery that is required? Would that be expected for the other older children in the class? These are issues that need to be talked about before the placement and then evaluated at some point after the placement.

I also tell the parents they need to make sure the school is thinking more systematically than just about what they are doing right now. Every time you decide you are going to do something, it has an impact that ripples down the curriculum and down the strand. Sending the kids to a higher math group with the next grade level has an impact for years to come. What are these children going to study during the next year and the year after that and so on? Parents need to ask for a plan for the child that goes from the current year to the end of high school if possible.

Paula: How concerned should parents be that their child has social experiences with age mates, particularly school social experiences?

Thomas: Well, it has been my experience they do anyway. Kids don't just have a peer group and abandon that peer group and hang out with the older kids. In effect they have experiences that cross both. A student I worked with for example, was a middle school student who skipped over eighth grade and went to high school. At home, her best friends were the same and did not change—they were her same age. But, now she had a new peer group in school. While in high school she socialized with her new older friends, and at home she would socialize with her former friends.

Managing different groups of friends is usually not a problem for most kids. There are kids who are socially a little less well-developed, and for them you certainly want to make sure to plan for opportunities for socialization. But again, that would not have anything to do really with acceleration. It would have more to do with the kind of difficulties the student would have anyway.

References

• Acceleration Web site retrieved September 7, 2001 on Hoagies Gifted
• Assouline, S., Colangelo, N., Lupkowski-Shoplik, A., & Lipscomb, B.A. Iowa Acceleration Scale-A guide for whole grade acceleration K-8. Retrieved September 7, 2001 on Hoagies Gifted
• Evans, S. Acceleration: A legitimate means of meeting the needs of gifted children. Retrieved September 7, 2001.
• Gross, U.M. (1999). From "the saddest sound" to the D Major chord: The gift of accelerated progression. Retrieved September 7, 2001.
• Jones, E. D., & Southern W. T. (1991). The Academic Acceleration of Gifted Children. New York: Teachers College Press.
• NSW’s Gifted Education Research, Resource, and Information Centre: GERRIC. Retrieved September 7, 2001 on the World Wide Web.