Hi, my mild asd son will be 5 in 2 months. We believe he may be gifted, but are not sure if we should pursue testing at 5 or wait until he is older. The IU will be doing transition to K stuff when he turns 5, but I'm not sure about IQ testing. I'm also not sure if I would trust what they do anyway, our IU experience has been very negative so far.
I'm also concerned because his preschool teacher asked if we talked to the IU teacher about dyslexia. Most of what we see that might point that way seems to be age appropriate and every time I've asked the IU that is what they tell me. But his teacher says that in children who know have known their letters/numbers for so long and read at a third grade level it is not normal to have some of his issues.
She pointed out some things that I have noticed too, but like I said, I just chalked them up to part of development. I too am beginning to wonder why they don't clear up. Basically, when he writes (which he's been doing for years) he reverses letters more often then not (his name starts with S and the S is usually reversed). When he writes numbers he often writes them out of order, 24, for 42 for instance, even though he knows the 1's and 10's position and can break down numbers into ones and tens just fine. When he reads he hates to sound out words. He can do it, but it seems to take a lot of effort considering he started sounding out before age 2. It helps him if I point to one letter at a time and he follows my finger. If he actually tries he's pretty much 100% at sounding out anything even slightly phonetic. He sometimes guesses at words starting with the end sound or even reading entirely backwards (like shinif for finish). When he writes he tends to do better, writing well from left to right and in sounding out order. In fact he writes full pages of phonetically sounded out stories and seems to have no trouble at it. Oddly, sometimes when something is a sight word he knows how to spell, it will end up written backwards (iluvuoy for I love you.)
So, in short, I'm not at all familiar with dyslexia other than a general idea that it can lead to trouble reading and has something to do with mixing up the order of things? I wasn't terribly concerned until the teacher said something, especially since he is reading so well. He also reads very quickly. I sometimes hear other much older looking kids reading at the book store and they are so much slower than he ever was. He's got a great memory for words, usually once we read a word, he's got it for any other text. He reads for pleasure and with great expression. He understands everything he reads and can ask and answer factual questions about the text. Owing to his mild asd (we assume anyway), he isn't great at answering any questions related to the thoughts and feelings of the characters, unless said thoughts and feelings are mentioned in the text.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone!
