My dysgraphic kid got extra time and a computer for written parts of AP tests, but we have an umbrella program, and were able to go through the school district and get a 504, and then they submitted it. What we had was a WISC IQ test showing a big difference between processing speed (especially the coding subtest) and the other IQ components, and a Woodcock Johnson achievement test with some low and lowish fluency scores (especially sentence writing fluency). They said they couldn't officially diagnose a learning disability, but could write accommodations into a 504 plan, and that sailed right through. So I think it must be harder doing it yourself, but they don't really need all that much proof.

update -- my kid got approved by the college board for 1.5x time on free response or essay tests, and use of a computer for essays only. I assume the computer won't apply to the AP chemistry test (since she might need to draw molecules and such), but the 1.5x time should help quite a bit

Thanks! The school coordinator just started the process of submitting the accommodations request to the College Board, so I'll see how that goes. The 504 meeting was like you describe -- basically on me to come up with anything I think should be in the plan, in the course of about 15 minutes with various school folks that knew how it worked much better than I did. I did my best with the suggestions, but this kid hasn't been in a regular classroom, so it was a bit hard to imagine what she'd need if she were. It was the school's idea to put in things like minimizing the amount of writing output required, in addition to the extended time and computer use I thought of already. Hopefully the list will be helpful in a college classroom as well as on standardized tests.

update: School said they'd happily give kid a 504 plan for accommodations for writing, but can't officially say she has a learning disability, because they'd need either one of the IQ scales 85 or below (hers is 89), or an achievement area 10th percentile or below (sentence writing fluency is 9th percentile, but writing samples is 70th, bringing the overall area up to average. They said that they only give a kid an official diagnosis if they need an IEP, and need the expectations to be modified, and that a 504 is for when a kid just needs accommodations to meet the existing expectations. Which is what my kid needs. They seem to think that'll be good enough for the college board (and want to be helpful). Is that how it works?

Does anyone know the relative difficulty of getting more time vs. use of a computer for writing for accommodations? Or both? Kid would only need the time on the written portion of tests -- she can handle multiple choice as is. She says that both would be best, but either one would be a substantial help. Not sure whether it's better to ask for the moon and have them possibly reject it, or ask for the smallest possible thing (time and a half on one section), in the hopes that it'll be more likely to go through, and still quite useful for her.

Processing speed is the only really low one, with one subtest at 5th percentile, and the other closer to average. The rest of the IQ scales were in the 125-144 range, with subtests 84th to 99.9th percentile. The subtests with timed components were somewhat lower than the others, but still high. As far as other sorts of specialist testers/optometrists, not only could I likely not afford them, but I'm fairly sure they don't exist within hundreds of miles. All I'm looking for is accommodations like extra time on standardized tests. And typing rather than writing for the answers if that's possible. I am also a bit worried now about what will happen when this kid gets to college. Both for timed written tests (which there might be more of because of chat gpt?), and for the fact that this kid can in no way take notes (has a steel trap long term memory, so hasn't needed to yet, but...) My kid already did take an AP bio test last year, and got a 4. Which must have consisted of getting basically all of the multiple choice questions right, and barely getting anything done on the free response (I assume what little she did manage to finish must have been correct, or I can't imagine she could have done that well). Maybe we shouldn't have done that, but honestly, it was only in practicing for that test that I realized the extent of her issues, and she was already signed up and had mastered the content. I feel like I owe it to her to try for the accommodations anyway -- it was my fault to sign her up and I didn't know better. I'd love AP tests to work out because of how I can accommodate kid's learning quirks as long as I teach the same content, and still prove to colleges she really understands the stuff. I guess with "average" reading ability they won't think she's dyslexic, and maybe I'm wrong on that, but it was a many years-long struggle to get a clearly gifted kid to be able to read decently, and if I'd done a test at 9 years old, it would have been an obvious issue. I think I'd just been accommodating her entire life and the AP test was the first time our quirky little homeschool crashed into the real world. We did audio/video/read-aloud input for years until her reading caught up, and still do quite a bit of it. Still do oral output for almost everything, and what little gets written down is on the computer with spell check.

Help figuring out test scores? Just had the school test my 9th grader. I've suspected dyslexia/dysgraphia her whole life, and accommodated at home, but she's doing things like taking AP tests now, and timed written anything kills her, and hoping she can qualify for more time. So I had the school test her, and they did IQ and achievement (WISC V and Woodcock Johnson IV). I don't know what they actually look for in those scores, and want to be prepared for the meeting. IQ is overall quite gifted with poor processing speed -- difference of 55 points between two of the indexes (range 144-89), and more extreme on the subtests (99.9th to 5th percentile). The achievement testing is a lot of stuff working out to average, with every "fluency" thing low average or average, and some problem solving things superior. In my experience, I wouldn't call any of this kid's actual achievement average. She's amazing at math, science, and programming, doing her second AP science, and AOPS precalc in 9th grade. And couldn't read until 9 yrs old, has always struggled with writing, and has never been able to spell. Sentence writing fluency is 9th percentile, math facts fluency is 25th percentile, sentence reading fluency is 61st percentile. I see that discrepancy as a struggle, and it's clear to me that what she can produced in a timed writing situation is nowhere near what she actually knows/understands, but not sure if the school will see that, or if they're just looking at whether a kid meets average achievement regardless of potential.

My kid got a 4 on AP bio, which we're happy about. It was 8th grade, and her first AP test. She knew the material well, but struggled really hard with time pressure on the free writing portion (likely some dyslexia/dysgraphia issues involved). Given that result, we'll probably try AP chem this year, which might actually be easier for her.

Given this issue with CS, what should a high schooler do (classes or otherwise) during high school to increase their chances of getting into a CS program? My kid is only just starting high school next year, but has loved CS for years. He's smart and a talented programmer but not a competitive personality -- reading things like this I'm worried he'll have to have that kind of competitive mindset just to be able to study CS at all at any university.

Thanks for the help. Kid is pretty advanced in some things, but tends to lazy/distracted rather than driven. However, he's a reasonably compliant student and interested in college, so is likely to do as many classes as I tell him he should. Maybe I'll start with 7 and see how it goes. In the electives, is it OK to have some of the same ones year after year? Kid has been studying computer science since 6th grade and it's his favorite subject, so I imagine I'd just keep it on the transcript every year if his interest continues.

Back when I was in high school (a pretty good public high school with AP and honors classes that sent lots of kids to good colleges), everyone took 6 classes at a time. There was no way whatsoever to take more within the school day, and the college prep kids rarely took fewer. On the various planning threads, I often see more, sometimes significantly more. So I figure these expectations have probably changed, and I'm not sure what to ask of my kid. How many classes is normal/expected/enough? Does that change across the high school years? I have a computer science-loving kid starting high school next year, who's advanced in math and science, somewhat behind in writing. I don't know where he'll end up, but I'd like to set him up with a course load that would allow him to aim for at least somewhat competitive colleges if he chooses to go that way.

My kid went to CTY camp last summer (just after 7th grade). They have really good financial aid, so it wasn't expensive for us, other than the travel. I was hoping that my geeky kid who has zero in person friends would make some connections. It didn't work out that way for him. He said all the kids were really good at making friends right away except for him. He really enjoyed the academics (he took a Data Structures and Algorithms class), but not the social piece. Now he says he refuses to do anything like that (e.g. interacting with other humans) ever again, and is worried he will hate college because of the social piece. So it backfired for us, but largely because my kid really is socially awkward -- too much so even for geek camp, I guess.

Following, since my kid is in exactly the same place -- chose not to take AP computer science because relearning all the same stuff he knows in Python in Java sounded incredibly boring, but might want to jump through that AP hoop at some point to get access to other things. Also would be interested in non-class resources that would expediently teach Java to someone that's very comfortable with Python.

Mine took both intro and intermediate in 6th grade. No coding experience beforehand except casually being shown a few things by Dad. The beginning of the intermediate course was a little hard, but once he got the hang of it it was no trouble. Much less time consuming than the AOPS math class he took. He's loved computer science ever since.

I struggle with this with my 13yo 8th grader. I never thought about "pushing" when he was younger, because he always filled his spare time with amazing in-depth learning in whatever he was passionate about at the time. But that became less true as he entered middle school. And while he's fine with content being difficult, and hates things that are boring or easy, he also doesn't want to spend any more time doing work than is necessary. My 12yo 6th grader is in public school, mostly for social reasons, but also because she likes the structure, and also likes that it's easy to get As and then come home and just be done with school. My kids can be engaged and interested in things, but neither of them seem to have any ambitious, competitive, driven, or goal-seeking personality traits. It's hard for me to really understand and work with, because I was the opposite. When I go skiing with them, they toodle along up the hill at an annoyingly slow pace every time, even as they now have the physical capacity to go much faster. When I was their age, I would have wanted to prove I could keep up with the adults. They could keep up, but don't want to. So with academic subjects I end up telling my homeschooled kid: "next year I have to give you credits for your subjects, and kids in school are expected to work for X hours on each subject so you probably should too." But that's a rather unsatisfying and ineffective way to motivate someone, and in subjects where he's already well ahead, it's hard to justify. Especially working in the same room as two work-at-home parents that have deliberately chosen to work less than full time, with a huge amount of freedom and flexibility -- we've never modeled a required hours sort of life. We tend to end up with stuff that is challenging in input level, but not workload. Exacerbated by the fact that he considers all writing to be complete torture. I hope this will get better with time, or I worry he won't be at all ready for college-style work when the time comes, even though he's already ready for some of the content.

Struggling with the same question for my B&M kid. I think it's a much more complicated decision for a kid who won't homeschool all the way through. I have an advanced 8th grade boy who has always homeschooled and plans to do so through high school. He's also socially awkward and not especially mature. No plans to change his grade level, and I think we'll appreciate the time to bring his weaker skills (writing) up closer to the level of his great ones (math, science, CS) I also have an advanced 6th grade girl who started going to PS in 4th grade after homeschooling. It's a tiny K-12 school and she's the only kid in her grade. This has given her a defacto grade skip because she takes all her classes with the 7th-8th class. Even with that, she's in a higher math, gets A+ grades, and her teachers mention it's hard to keep her challenged. But she likes the social opportunities and structure of school. She's an organized kid who has matured early physically. Things will get awkward when her current cohort is getting high school credit and I have to push either for her to take the same classes for no credit or she gets pushed back to repeat middle school content. There's a strong argument for not skipping her so she isn't forced out of school early and can take college classes online at home at the end of high school. It will probably help her college admissions potential not to skip as well. But there's also an argument for skipping her so she can go off and take those classes with other students in person at 17 rather than only online. I also graduated at 17 and she'd only be one month younger than I was. I have no idea what's best, but probably do need to decide before high school.

Thanks for all the thoughts. I do think he has trouble figuring out what the question wants from him, and sometimes does just assume that it should be or must be actually asking something much more complex, like Dmmetler mentioned. Which often then leads him to his own impossible question (where he hasn't been given enough info to solve it). For example, if a question asks something like how a single nucleotide change in gene X could lead to phenotype Y -- they're looking for a generic answer about how it can change an amino acid and affect the ability of the protein to bind to its substrate or some such. It doesn't even occur to him that anyone would ask something like that, so he thinks he must need to have memorized which amino acids would swapped with that particular nucleotide change, and their chemical structures, and know details about where that site would be in the protein and how exactly it would be altered. Then he says he can't answer the question. One thing I have been trying is to get him to write test questions for me to answer, which does help a bit with getting him in the test writer's mindset, and seeing how I approach the answers, but he doesn't tend to write the obvious sort of questions that get him stuck. He's taken outsourced classes, but the only ones with written assignments were in math and CS. He did improve in both the style of his proofs and the commenting of his code by doing that, but it remained his weak point. While "I don't need to say that -- you know that I know it" is definitely an issue, I worry that tackling another subject in an outsourced class would be setting him up for failure if I don't teach him these skills first. Any sort of class with content he'd find interesting would probably expect him to be much better at this than he currently is. Doing it verbally with me scribing does help somewhat, but not entirely. I am planning to stick to that until I can get him to the point where his answers are good, then make him type them, then finally write by hand (which he hates with a passion). I will try some of these reframing techniques and see if anything clicks.

Of course I know it's an important skill. As an ex-scientist turned writer, explaining complicated things to average members of the public in a clear and engaging way is a lot of what I do -- which is probably part of the problem. It makes me more frustrated with him, and is probably part of his pushback (since of course he's not going to be a writer like mom -- so why does he need to listen?). It's easier for him to say that questions are "stupid" than admit he's struggling with the skill of explanation. He actually does much better when he's making a presentation on one of his own projects, but answering other people's questions in writing is also a necessary skill. It is helpful to have specific examples of how it works in the programming world, rather than me just saying that I'm sure he'll need to explain things. I will also try that RACE idea. I think clear rules and strategies about exactly how to do it could help him. I was a little like him as a kid (also frustrated by "stupid" assignments), but I was a naturally better writer, so it didn't cause much trouble. It's the kind of childish attitude that I grew out of and he hopefully will too. But I would rather guide him out of it now.

I'm not sure this is really an accelerated kid question -- but I wouldn't be surprised if someone here has had a similar issue. My 13 year old has been homeschooled all the way through. We haven't used much official curriculum, and even when we have, he hasn't really ever answered the kinds of questions you see on tests and worksheets (we've mostly focused on discussions and projects for output). I've also (and maybe this was a mistake!) always let him skip over anything "too easy" in favor of something more interesting and deeper on the same topic. So, now we're working through AP Biology. He considers all multiple choice questions stupid, but does them fine. But he just totally shuts down when he sees any free-response question that asks what he sees as obvious (either on practice tests or in a textbook). Not only does he not want to answer those questions, he doesn't even know where to start or what to say. And has trouble figuring out what the question is asking (because someone can't possibly just want you to restate that you remember how recessive alleles work in full sentences). The harder questions are a lot less of a struggle. He's also a very reluctant writer and probably somewhat dyslexic (very much a STEM kid). I don't really care about this AP test in particular, but I do think he needs to learn how to "answer stupid questions" in general and am failing at teaching him either the how or the why. I've tried to say that explaining things that seem obvious to you is an important part of life, then he says he'll be a programmer and never have to do it beyond comments in his code. He does really enjoy biology, so it doesn't seem like a bad place or time to teach this if I can figure out how

My kid has always preferred to skip most of the regular problems in favor of the challenge problems. He'd much rather through struggle through one hard problem than do 10 easy ones, and always has. As a result he's probably done many fewer total math problems in his life than most kids his age, but with lots of deep thinking. He's working through precalculus now, and that approach seems to be working well for him.

We fall in both the "middle of nowhere" and "super shy socially awkward kids" category. I have an 11yo who does attend public school (around 45 kids total K-12), and she doesn't do a whole lot better finding friends than my homeschooled 13yo (the only kid he counts as a friend moved away years ago but visits sporadically, and the 11yo's only friend moved far away at the end of the summer). With a maximum of maybe 15 kids total in their age range in the community, there aren't a lot of options if you're a bit unusual and/or shy and don't click with them right away. Neither seem particularly unhappy about it at this point, but I do worry about it. I think I need to encourage the 13yo especially to find connection online, but am not sure where to start.

Due to a couple of stints in South America in elementary school, my kids both speak Spanish reasonably well, but basically haven't done any reading or writing in Spanish. So I'm looking for some kind of textbook/workbook style resource at an intermediate or advanced level for them to work on that aspect. For my homeschooled kid any format is OK, but I'd rather have a paper textbook/workbook format so it will also work for my public school kid -- she's bored to tears in the beginning Spanish class she has to take and the teacher will let her bring in her own resources to substitute the written work the class is doing.

My 8th grader's current plan: AOPS precalculus (just with the book -- he took the intermediate algebra class last year, and although the proof practice was good for him, the schedule was intense, and it'll be nice to spread it out some) Computer science from Coursera, hopefully, plus whatever self-driven programs he wants to make. What he's done already apparently corresponds roughly to a second year college CS class, so I've been trying to find him good options to learn the concepts he doesn't know yet. Biology -- I'm an ex molecular biologist so I can teach this. Got a college biology text mostly for my own reference to ensure I cover all the topics, not sure how much of it I'll use. Lab-wise we live on the coast and have a long standing family obsession with intertidal invertebrates, and at least 5 years worth of semi-quantitative checklist data, so I'm hoping to incorporate that into whatever topics work for it. History -- audiobooks plus discussions English -- he's a terrible and reluctant writer, but somehow does fine doing videos or slideshow presentations. So we're trying a new plan where he creates a presentation on each topic first, before writing an essay about it, to hopefully shake him out of complaining he has no idea what to say for every single sentence. Spanish -- should do more here, but will try to remember to practice this to coast along and not entirely forget all the conversational Spanish he learned in South America as a younger kid. Will do it more formally in high school probably, to check the foreign language box.

Second Sapiens. For podcasts, we had lots of great discussions from this one : https://www.npr.org/podcasts/481105292/more-perfect about the supreme court and about the constitutional amendments.

Why not just read them adult nonfiction -- one-word-style books on different science topics that grab kid interest. I remember we read one called "Venomous" when they were a little younger than yours, and it led to a lot of great exploration and quite a good understanding of various aspects of chemistry and biology. Even if you don't have broad coverage in the topic, usually a ton of related stuff is brought in to those types of books (including history), and discussions can fill in any missing background.