Mathematically gifted middle school students need special consideration to deal with normal adolescent problems and those relating to their giftedness. Programs such as Search for Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) have aided the top 1% of 7th grade math students, but often other gifted 6th, 7th and 8th graders are left in regular math classes to be bored and unchallenged. Teachers must become aware of the needs and characteristics of those students and provide both enrichment and acceleration for them within the type of classroom they are in, whether homogeneous or heterogeneously grouped.
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Jane A. Wolfle (1986) studied this question.
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