I dont know about the 'if they cant grasp BASIC' thing, but Scratch is not as inclusive as people think. My daughter was almost repulsed by it, but actually when I made a "laptop" (https://github.com/jackdoe/programming-for-kids/blob/master/...) of a pi zero and a small screen that boots into vim, and she started to make python do things, basic math things, she was much more engaged.

We made few arduino nano led controller, she helped to solder the mic sensors and etc, and also to program the delay between the 'claps', it just feels so real.

I also bought pi4 game hat (https://www.waveshare.com/game-hat.htm) that she assembled herself, and then I uploaded a 'hello world' snes game, showed her some assembly.

She played a lot of 'human resource machine' and '7 billion humans', and I was paying her sometimes 1 euro per completed level, and turns out it was time well spent.

She also helped me with some work on Ben Eater's kit (especially the clock and some registers).

I think the best lesson we had that got her hooked was when I made like 5 line python script that controlled the keyboard that was climbing an infinite staircase in Roblox using pyautogui.

What I am trying to say is that some kids will respond to scratch and some wont, and either way I dont think you should say 'oh programming is not for them'