aeh and Platypus have both given you excellent advice. Like Platypus, I'm the parent of a 2e child, and second everything Platypus notes below:
1) Five really is young for reading and writing. Lots of kids, gifted and neurotypical, aren't there yet.
2 BUT - pay attention to the things that set off your kid's behaviour. I wish I'd understood way sooner that DD's nightly freak-out about her school reader was much more important than the fact that she seemed to be able to (eventually, when she calmed down) read the book. Anxiety, anger, avoidance, behaviour - all are ways your kid is telling you that there is something painful about the task you've given them, and they are panicking.
3) 2E kids are really, REALLY good at looking like they can do things they really can't, or can only do with great pain, using all their resources, or when the planets align. The question is less, "Can they?" and more "At what cost?"
4) My dyslexic DD when tested at 8 had great phonemic awareness (88th percentile), but scores plunged when she was asked to engage in increasingly complex manipulation of those phonemes - which aeh identified as a common pattern in 2E. She was probably the best "pre-reader" in her K classes, but she stopped there, while her peers moved on in grade 1. (Ditto for writing.) Detailed phonemic assessment (like a CTOPP) can help untangle this. 2E kids often don't look much like the typical descriptions of various LDs, but there are some great threads on this forum we can help you find if you are looking for more info.
5) Writing letters requires a different part of the brain than drawing, and kids can be happy artists while also dysgraphic.
My 2e ds has dyspraxia and dysgraphia. When he was 5/6 and in kindergarten/first grade he was routinely throwing over-the-top fits when presented with any kind of writing task at home. As parents we were beyond confused about why he was getting so upset - we thought he just didn't like the idea of having homework to do, even though it didn't seem like much, and anyone who had a conversation with him could see that cognitively it shouldn't have been anything but easy as can be. By the time he was in 2nd grade his teachers were convinced he had ADHD because he was checking out in class and not completing his work. It wasn't until he had a full neuropsychologist evaluation in 3rd grade that we were aware he had an actual disability and learning challenge.
As aeh mentioned, each 2e child and each 2e experience is different (fwiw, the same is true for people with dyspraxia - it impacts each person differently and across multiple functions). There are some commonalities of experience that are helpful to be aware of though when you're parenting a child who's potentially dealing with a 2e situation. First, it's extremely difficult to tease out learning challenges in the early elementary years because learning milestones are widely variable among all children, regardless of ability. For my ds, that meant his dysgraphia went unnoticed simply because he hadn't fallen behind any developmental milestones. At the same time, he was struggling tremendously every time he was faced with a writing task - but... leading into the second issue: Children in early elementary aren't masters of communication yet (and especially if they have any kind of challenge impacting communication). Our ds couldn't tell us he was unable to write letters, he just knew that he was being given an extremely frustrating task, he wasn't able to do it, other kids seemed to be able to do it, and he was upset. Since he didn't know how to explain this to us, and didn't know that it was not something "wrong" with him, he became frustrated, angry, and he did what kids do - he threw tantrums.
Another common thing with 2e kids - simply because they are so intelligent, it's tough to see that they're struggling - both because they can hide their struggles and because adults see the "smart" functioning side of the child and think that the struggling side is either laziness or misbehavior or just typical development.
I can't speak directly to the WISC version that your ds has taken as I'm both not a professional and also because the WISC that my ds took was an earlier version, but one thing stands out to my untrained eye: the relatively low scores for processing speed compared to other scores. I'm wondering if your ds has had any assessments for either fine motor or vision, that might rule out whether or not these are impacting the WISC subtest scores. Vision issues might be impacting your ds' reading I have a dd who had visual processing issues when she was little - we didn't realize it and instead thought she had either learning challenges or ADHD. Her WISC had a similar difference in these processing speed subtest scores vs other subtests - all due to vision. Her eyesight in each eye was a-ok, therefore the vision challenges hadn't been picked up in school screenings, yet her eyes weren't tracking together at all, so her vision was severely challenged. Once we realized that and she went through vision therapy, she went from a struggling reader to a kid who loved to read within a few short months.
You're currently in that place where you don't know yet that if your child has a challenge outside of ASD, but there are behavioral signs that might point in that direction as well as WISC scores that are uneven. My advice at this point in time is to watch carefully, keep in touch with his teachers so that you're aware of what's happening at school, and if you have a concern, don't let anyone brush it off as falling into that "wide range of development" that takes place in early elementary if you feel it's something more. Keep asking questions, keep researching, keep looking for answers.
Best wishes,
polarbear
