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Hello,

We've just received the results back from my 8yo son's evaluation at Belin-Blank. We're going to have a phone call with the psychologist after the holidays to go over everything, but I'm impatient and have received such good advice here before, that I'm hoping someone can help me understand these results better!

The evaluator did tell us that these scores represent "the floor" as he put it, because my son has such a severe anxiety disorder, that presented in many ways throughout the eval, that he felt like it lowered his scores. He recommended we continue to try to get the anxiety under control (which feels rather hopeless, as we've been 'working' on that forever, to no avail) and then re-test in 3 years.

WISC-V

Verbal Comprehension 116 / 86th %tile
Similarities 12
Vocabulary 14

Visual Spatial 135 / 99th
Block Design 15
Visual Puzzles 17

Fluid Reasoning 134 / 99th
Matrix Reasoning 17
Figure Weights 15

Working Memory 103 / 58th
Digit Span 7
Picture Span 14

Processing Speed 92 / 30th
Coding 9
Symbol Search 8

GAI: 129 / 97th
FSIQ: 120 / 91st

**Could anyone calculate the Non-Verbal Index for me? It seems like that would draw from all the tests that my son performed well in, with the exception of Coding. Would the NVI be higher than the GAI?**

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WIAT-III

Total Reading 94 / 34th %tile
Reading Comprehension 100 / 50th
Word Reading 97 / 42nd
Pseudoword Decoding 94 / 34th
Oral Reading Fluency 99 / 47th

Mathematics 124 / 95th
Math Problem Solving 125 / 95th
Numerical Operations 119 / 90th

Written Expression 73 / 4th
Spelling 92 / 30th
Sentence Composition 72 / 3rd
Essay Composition 66 / 1st

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As you can see, my son has Dysgraphia. We already have an IEP goal to address writing as well as accommodations for keyboarding and scribing, but I think we could be doing a LOT more. I hope we get some good suggestions about where to go from here.

We went to NAGC's annual convention a few weeks before we received these results and attended a presentation on Stealth Dyslexia, which really resonated with my confirmed-2e husband who had an epiphany that he was/is likely dyslexic. He shares much in common with our son. Do these results also point to Dyslexia in addition to the Dysgraphia we already knew about?

Would my son be considered gifted 'enough' based on these results, in terms of applying to certain programs which don't require any testing but are just stated to be for gifted kids? Obviously we're nowhere near DYS level, but I just mean like summer camps that are meant for gifted kids (in my son's strength areas of science/math/engineering-ish stuff, not anything language artsy) but don't require any documentation? I guess I'm asking if he's 'gifted enough' to likely hold his own in these sorts of programs?

He looks obviously 2e to me, but like... 2e on steroids? His highs are high, but dang, his lows are really low. Really discrepant and asynchronous. He was full-grade accelerated from 1st to 3rd based on a CogAT he took last year, plus he receives subject-acceleration in Math. My worries now are that we accelerated based on the school's recommendation and solid evidence-based science, to build on his strengths, but seeing how very low his scores were in writing and reading makes me really worry about him not having had that extra time to shore up those skills. Plus, even though he has innate math talent (he can derive answers without seeming to have learned how, and he doesn't know his math facts well but can multiply and divide correctly regardless...), he doesn't *enjoy* math. He's SO not a mathy kid who asks for workbooks and we don't work on it at all at home.

I feel a little bummed that the GAI isn't 1 single point higher, at 130, because while I know intellectually that IQ exists on a continuum, that 1 point would represent the difference between gifted and not gifted by many people's standards. My son's school uses the CogAT to determine inclusion in their GT program, and he scored exceptionally well on his last CogAT (better than on this IQ; up in the 140s), so I'm not super worried, but he is due to have another CogAT administered at the end of this year for possible further inclusion in GT clusters and such, and I just think that, even though CogAT scores are almost everything to the school, having a 130+ on an independent IQ test would have given me some more room to advocate for his inclusion should he have an 'off' day when he takes the CogAT again. 2e is tough.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'd appreciate any feedback that you guys can offer. Thank you so much!



NVI = 135. And there's your one point, with a few to spare.

So yes, a little bit higher than the GAI. But if you could take away fine motor speed (which, unfortunately, you cannot formally on this instrument), his nonverbal ability would be better represented by 140s than 130s, consistent with the motor- and expressive language-reduced result obtained on the CogAT.

Could you convincingly make an argument that he has stealth dyslexia, based on these results? Yes, probably. Would it make a difference in his services (and, more importantly, his life outcomes)? Probably not. At this point, his phonetic decoding skills are within normal limits for his age, and, at his age, average is already nearing adult functional levels. (NT students are expected to have acquired the foundations of all phonetic decoding skills by the end of fourth grade.) His reading comprehension (and hence access to text) is both age/grade-appropriate and consistent with his verbal cognition, although somewhat below his nonverbal cognition.

His math skills are totally on target for best estimates of his ability. Weaker fluency (which I see was not assessed) likely reflects the automaticity weaknesses that typically underlie dysgraphia, as well as simple fine motor speed deficits.

Writing is dramatically poorer than predicted by any measure. But you already knew that. I'd be interested in the breakdown of those writing scores (other than spelling, which simply reflects his average phonics skills). Does the eval report discuss how much of sentence composition was reflective of mechanics errors vs sentence structure/semantic/grammar errors? (About half the score is derived purely from spelling/capitalization/punctuation/handwriting.) How was the content of his essay? Did the examiner attempt testing of limits, say by having him orally elaborate his essay after the fact? Were there measures of oral expressive language administered? If so, how do they compare with his written expression?

Yes, he is gifted enough. Especially if you stay in his strength areas.

Believe it or not, this is not the most extreme 2e profile I have ever seen. But yes, this has to be feeding his anxiety something awful. He can think abstractly at a very high level, but can't verbalize his ideas on paper. If he can get to the point where his written output is either remediated or accommodated enough that it somewhat more accurately reflects his reasoning, I would not be surprised if the anxiety abated significantly in parallel. He probably doesn't chase math workbooks outside of school because they involve writing and a lot of rote calculations using math fact automaticity. I expect he doesn't enjoy math right now because it's mostly procedural drills. He might like logic puzzles more, or creative problem-solving. Mathy doesn't have to mean workbooks.

Whether full grade acceleration was appropriate partly depends on how much of the written expression is purely mechanical in nature, and how much is actual expressive language. I'm a little suspicious that a piece of it is actual language, given the much lower (though still High Average) VCI. If his actual oral expressive language is no higher than High Average, acceleration in written language may be pushing the limits of his zone of proximal development. OTOH, if the school is willing to split the difference between language and math skills and have him in full grade acceleration for the sake of making math SSA only one grade ahead, but then support written expression at the bottom of the grade level (or even below grade level, back to his age-matched grade, if that's his proper instructional level), then this might be an effective compromise.

GT clusters make the most sense for him only if they don't require a great deal of writing, or if his AT or other accommodations provide him sufficient access to the writing demands.
Hi League,

My son has fine motor dysgraphia as well as challenges with oral/written expression due to dyspraxia. He has a similar but larger gap in WISC scores compared to your ds' scores (although he was tested with WISC-IV so not a direct comparison). He's in his first year of college now, but was first diagnosed with dysgraphia at the end of 2nd grade, when he was 8 years old. I'll share a few thoughts from our experience that might be helpful (keep in mind that I'm only a parent, not a professional smile

We had no clue at 8 years old that our child had a disability - it was easy to see he was really smart because of his ability to express himself verbally, and because of the thoughts he expressed (and yes, he does have an expressive language challenge... but it wasn't at all apparent because we weren't looking for it). He was first evaluated by a neuropsychologist because he was developed *huge* anxiety, wasn't performing in school, and his teacher was convinced he had ADHD. That first evaluation uncovered his dyspraxia and dysgraphia but didn't reveal anything about his expressive language disorder. I was beyond shocked to learn he had a fine motor challenge, but once we knew that, and were able to tell our ds that he had dysgraphia and he saw that we (parents) were going to help do whatever we could to help him find a way to work with dysgraphia, that alone relieved a *huge* load of anxiety. Just knowing that it wasn't something "wrong" with him helped. Having the name for the diagnosis also gave us the opportunity to share stories of successful adults with him that also have dysgraphia or similar challenges, and that helped relieve his anxiety too. One of the stories I liked best was something I read by Charles Schwab, who told about how his mother was honest with him in elementary school, that he would have to work a lot harder and a lot longer than the other kids, but that he would be successful and she'd be right there with him all the way - and she was. As an adult, he admits that he always has other people proof read anything he writes, and that it's ok to rely on other people for help. (I'll get back to this further below if you can hang in there through a very long post!).

Re the expressive language disorder, it was actually reflected in ds' first WISC and WJ-III scores, but it wasn't obvious because his scores were so impacted by his dysgraphia. If you read up on dysgraphia, many kids who have dysgraphia see amazing improvement in their written output once they have automation tools (keyboard, software etc) - these things helped ds, but they didn't help with much other than improving his spelling while writing, and speeding up some of his writing. He still didn't like to write, still had challenges thinking of what to say when he had an open-ended writing assignment, still wasn't producing written work at school. However, as he grew from 8 to 9 years old, he began to be able to verbalize more about his challenges, and he was able to tell us what was happening when he wasn't writing, and that he just didn't know what to say. In some of the reading I did (I think this was the Eides) I found a reference to expressive language challenges in gifted children, and it sounded a lot like ds. We had ds evaluated by a speech language pathologist, using the CELF, and was diagnosed with an expressive language disorder. Summary: kids with challenges may have multiple challenges that are layered - a specific challenge might be masked by one of the other challenges until it's remediated or accommodated.

You mentioned your ds doesn't ask for math worksheets - I'm a scientist and I love love love math. There are a heck of a lot of people who love math and are talented at math who really aren't turned on by worksheets. Same is true for almost any subject. A lot of math that is taught in early elementary relies on fine motor skills too - my ds wasn't able to advance in math in 2nd grade because kids had to be able to roll a pair of dice with the numbers 1-6, write the addition equation down, get the correct answer, and complete 20 rolls->equations in 2 minutes. DS understood how to do the calculations, but he couldn't write fast enough to show it. Once he was in pre-algebra and beyond he excelled at math - although he still is still very slow at writing out math (he's tried using software packages to "write" his math homework 2-3 different times in his life, but prefers to use handwriting).

Identifying, understanding the impact, remediating and accommodating challenges that impact our kids in school and in life is a journey, not a one-stop shop where you can pick your diagnosis and remedy up off the shelf, take it home, put it in place, and everything is solved. I would love to tell you that after our ds was diagnosed by the SLP we had everything figured out, but each year as our kids grow they face new situations in school and in life and there's almost always something more to figure out. School was never something my ds enjoyed, but he did have years where we were able to find a fit that worked well. Everything worked better in general once we had the diagnosis and were advocating for ds, but ds himself often just simply didn't want to or enjoy dealing with it. That said, ds is doing great - his first year of college is going well. He's at a great, competitive, tough school studying the field he's interested in and well suited for. The tech that he uses to write no longer makes him stand out because everyone he's with is using tech.

Back to Charles Schwab - and the note that Schwab as an adult relies on others to proofread his writing and that it's ok to have other people help you with areas you're not strong in. DS really felt different than other kids when he was in elementary school (he still felt different in middle and high school, but the impact was largest in elementary). Having to use accommodations made him feel like he didn't fit in and wouldn't ever fit in. He didn't want adults (aides) helping him with writing in class because he felt like it made him look stupid. As he moved up in school, the tech part of accommodations got easier, because other students also had access to laptops etc moving into high school. He still had difficulty asking for help and accommodations from teachers when he needed it - a combination of both not wanting to need help as well as not knowing how to verbalize it. He still hadn't really reached that magical point that other parents on here will write about where their child starts self-advocating by the end of high school, and I had more than a few worries sending him off to college - but he rose to the occasion in college, he's checked in with professors and the disability services when he needs to, and he's admitted to me that he always makes sure someone proofreads his writing assignments before he turns them in smile He's done well with his academics in college, but even more important is that he's grown in accepting who he is, enjoying who he is, and he's found his place in the world where it's ok to be who he is.

Sorry I've rambled, but maybe something in my extended post will offer a bit of help or hope! Last thought, re grade acceleration - I agree with aeh re the placement in school of intellectual challenge vs emphasis on writing. That was a huge struggle for our ds in elementary school, although we were on the opposite side of things - ds was old for grade (late birthday) and his schools refused to either grade or subject-accelerate him, so he spent many long hours bored with the pace and lack of depth in classroom work/discussions. We made adjustments for middle school (sent him to a school outside the district that offered more challenging work) and he made his own choice for high school (a gifted program that had a high bar for entrance). Where we're at, the options for highly gifted students really opened up much more once children reach middle school. I realize I'm an outlier among this list re my feelings on this, but I'm glad he wasn't grade accelerated for two reasons: the extra years at home before leaving for college gave him time to mature, and they (selfishly) gave me more time with him as a parent. If your child is loving where he's at and doing well, there's no reason not to continue to place him in an accelerated program, but if either of you aren't sure it's the best fit, it's a-ok to think through what other options are available in your area, and if it means keeping a highly-gifted student in age-grade level, it can work out ok.

Best wishes,

polarbear
ps - one more thing (lol!) - has your ds taken the TOWL (Test of Written Language)? It can be really helpful in determining specifics of challenges with written expression.
Thank you aeh and polarbear for your thoughtful replies. I will do my best to follow up with questions you each posed.

I have 1 more result to share, which adds to the somewhat-dismal mood of the eval. It says he took the Academic Fluency measures from the WJ-IV to assess his ability to rapidly complete basic academic tasks. Results were poor:

Sentence Reading Fluency 81, 11th percentile
Math Facts Fluency, 93, 32nd
Sentence Writing Fluency, <40, 0.1 percentile, couldn't complete, struggled to understand instructions, made errors on practice items, test discontinued.

Oh and for the heck of it:

CogAT from last May, at the end of 1st grade (which was the above-level if perhaps slightly outdated Form 6 Level A):
Verbal Raw 53, USS 184, SAS 118
Quant Raw 59, USS 232, SAS 144
Nonverbal Raw 61, USS 217, SAS 132
Composite Raw 173, USS 211, SAS 138

MAP from Fall of this year (3rd grade)
Math: 225 / 99th
Reading 289 / 53rd

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aeh: Thank you for calculating that NVI for me. I know it's pedantic and feels a bit like picking-and-choosing, but it does give me more 'proof' that my son is more than his challenges. (But, omg, his challenges!)

The eval says that he performed in the Low range on a task of writing mechanics (grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling) that required him to combine multiple sentences into 1 sentence and compose his own complete sentences when presented with a target word. He was most challenged on an expository writing task that asked him to write a brief essay about a specific topic (Essay Composition, 0.5th percentile). Although provided 10 minutes, he only took 4 minutes to write an essay that was very brief and failed to meet the task requirements. His penmanship is immature for his age and he employed an awkward pencil grip. He also made several reversals of letters and digits but was able to visualize and later correct those errors.

In terms of expressive language, it's so strange and interesting. When he speaks to people, DS8 uses an amazing vocabulary. He was a kid who spoke in full sentences with words like 'chandelier' and 'perhaps' and 'brilliant' when he was 18 months old. Everyone that meets him at some point will comment on his crazy vocabulary. Furthermore, he can assimilate new words very quickly. If you use a new word 1-2x with him, he will often just suddenly turn around and use it correctly in conversation 2 weeks later without you ever knowing that he had learned it. However, when he is asked to write a story (even with scribing or keyboarding... so no actual physical writing involved), his stories are very basic and short, and he doesn't draw from his strong vocabulary. I'm entirely unsure what's going on with that.

As for composition, it does not surprise me that he is so low in that area. He has never been asked to write before, really, and has never been taught HOW to compose sentences/paragraphs/essays. This is a kid who was kept for 100% of his day in a special ed behavior room for most of last year, and who received NO NEW INSTRUCTION whatsoever (I was *livid* when I found this out) for nearly 3 months. In that light, his strong math skills amaze me. I am thinking that we definitely need to add IEP goals towards teaching him composition (though his defiance/anxiety/avoidance will not want this to happen), because right now the only writing goal he has is about learning more phonetics and being able to correctly write (i.e. spell) CCVC words accurately.

aeh, I am amazed that with as many people as you help through this forum, and presumably through your private practice, you say that DS8 has the most extreme 2e profile you've ever seen. Wow. That really confirms how I've been thinking about his peaks and valleys as more like Mt.-Freaking-Everest!

polarbear, I'm really wondering about expressive language disorder after reading what you wrote. I don't know where to begin with getting him evaluated further... a private SLP, I guess? The school has an SLP he is working with for some specific speech sounds but she does not seem open to further testing/diagnosing of anything. So I'm looking for CELF and TOWL evals, I guess? I don't even think my DS could *take* the TOWL.... he just can't write. Sigh.

An OT eval was also recommended for fine and gross motor skills.

I've always kind of consoled myself with thinking that, if I *had* to, I could eventually homeschool him, but it's really not preferred for a large number of reasons. His avoidance/defiance is such that I think I'd really struggle even getting his buy-in to actually sit down and work in homeschool. Seeing these results has me really overwhelmed. I don't see how his school is going to be able to help remediate such huge issues, but there's no good private school options in this area, either. And at least at public school, he has IEP/FAPE protections ... if he'd done the kinds of behaviors we saw last year (aggression) at a private school, I have no doubt we'd have been kicked out.

I still don't regret the whole-grade acceleration, because we have come so far from where we've been. Things still aren't perfect by any means, and my son still doesn't exactly enjoy school, to put it mildly. But as I stated earlier, he was in a special ed room doing only mastered work for a good long time before his giftedness was recognized. Skipping 2nd grade made him feel respected, more seen for who he really is, and he found some degree of confidence in his strengths. He is a MUCH happier kid since the acceleration and we've only had a few really minor incidences of aggressive behavior this year, compared to, in some cases, almost daily incidents last year that were much more intense. Socially it has been a good thing as well, even though he still doesn't have any 'real' friends, or a best friend.

His anxiety is so severe. We go to therapy but our therapist has to "use the back door" as she calls it, to work with him. He's deeply uncomfortable talking about his feelings at all, so basically his anxiety is so huge that he can't actually talk about his anxiety! So we haven't been able to do typical CBT or exposure response therapy. She just gently pushes him to understand others' perspectives and puts him in situations that cause him minor amounts of anxiety so she can try to help him cope. He's taking a fairly large dose of Zoloft, too, but it hasn't helped the anxiety abate. I'm thinking we might need to try another drug even though it's sort of the gold standard for pediatric anxiety.

For anyone who made it through all this, thank you so, so much. I am so desperate to somehow help my son, and I can't tell you how much it helps to have a place to discuss this stuff!
Originally Posted by aeh
Did the examiner attempt testing of limits, say by having him orally elaborate his essay after the fact? Were there measures of oral expressive language administered? If so, how do they compare with his written expression?

No, there was no testing of limits. Also, despite the school advocating hard for him to receive whatever accommodations could be provided like lifted time limits, because they've seen the necessity of those at school, this was a standard administration. Being timed, even though the examiner tried to do it secretly, really stressed my son out. The tester did say that Block Design (which he got a 15 on) was likely lower than it would have been if it hadn't been the first test administered when the anxiety was super high (my son was hiding under a table 5 min prior to starting), and that they went back to that subtest afterward just to see, and DS was able to solve more puzzles and get further with a bit more time given.

It's hard because I know my son is a careful and deliberate thinker who is stressed by anything timed, but at the same time, I know that it's apparently really frowned upon to test the limits / do non-standard administration on the IQ test, because if given *enough* time, most people could likely get much further on the test items and therefore get artificially higher scores.

Also, there were no measures of oral expressive language given, to my knowledge.
Originally Posted by polarbear
You mentioned your ds doesn't ask for math worksheets - I'm a scientist and I love love love math. There are a heck of a lot of people who love math and are talented at math who really aren't turned on by worksheets.

Oh believe me, I know, I only mentioned worksheets a bit tongue-in-cheekily after having read recently of gifted kids who seriously love math so much that they ASK to be taught it, and do stuff like ask for math workbooks for Christmas. That is soooo not my son! But yes, he likes solving 3d puzzles like Hanayama metal puzzles and playing games like Rush Hour. Basically he likes anything visual-spatial / concrete / 3d manipulative. His favorite thing in the world is Minecraft and he's very very good at it. He creates insane redstone creations that leave even much older kids in the dust.
So to clarify, I actually meant that I -have- seen more extreme 2e profiles, but his is definitely up there.

I would definitely look into speech and language evaluation for some kind of expressive language impairment. Your observation that he struggles even with organizing oral language is a strong flag for true language impairments, not "merely" dysgraphia, and, I reiterate, probably a key contributor to his seemingly intractible anxiety. Telling a story about your feelings requires almost all the same skills as a generating a narrative about some other reasonably familiar topic.

The achievement testing narrative doesn't appear to break out the two components of scoring sentence composition, but your description of his oral language backs up the hypothesis that it's not just mechanics that was weak.

IQ tests should always be administered under standard conditions first, to obtain normative scores, but I generally test limits afterward, when it appears clinically indicated, as, although it is true that many people see a slight increase in scores with extra time, it is not actually true that most people would see a large jump with extra time. The reason the official time limits were chosen was precisely because, in the standardization sample, very few people were able to complete significantly more items when given additional time. Most examinees give an answer, and that's it. It's not like they keep looking at the items, figure out they were wrong, and change them to the correct answers, if you give them unlimited time. I've seen many, many students keep working for lengthy additional times, only to come up with the incorrect answer. That's usually what happens with additional time. Or they work for a while and give up. This is why I let students work through the time limits only when they either appear to be making legitimate progress, or when it seems to be in the best interest of maintaining rapport to let them keep at it (i.e., the student asks to try a little longer). Even then, I will stop them when it gets excessive. The outliers are the ones who keep reasoning their way through hard items and manage to come up with the correct solution after an extended time. The time limits are to expedite testing, and to reduce frustration for examinees who are approaching their natural ceiling.

So additional time might get most people a little further on the test, but not -much- further. As it happens, there is also a standardized way of testing limits, using the WISC-V Integrated, which has alternate response modalities and test conditions for systematically testing limits. Not every evaluator has access to this instrument, though. For instance, given what you've reported about his vocabulary acquisition skills, I'd be curious how he does on picture and multiple choice vocabulary measures (which are expressive language-reduced), vs open-response definitions. Or Block Design, which has an alternate clinical score (on the standard WISC-V) without bonus points for speed (still has the same max time limits, though), and also a motor-free clinical version (on the WISC-V Integrated).

On the counseling front, operating on the assumption that there is an expressive language impairment still unaddressed, it might be helpful to consider adding some therapeutic approaches that are not reliant on using complex language, such as art therapy.
Just wanted to follow up, now that we're a few months post-results. We took my son for an additional comprehensive private evaluation concerning his language and reading skills. I'm sharing more info here in case anyone with a similar kid reads this thread in the future and might glean something from it. I know I've found this forum's archives very useful.

Turns out, he does have an expressive language impairment (dysnomia; difficulty with word-finding). As I touched on before, this mostly shows up in his "writing" (which isn't writing in a traditional sense, as he uses a scribe due to severe dysgraphia). In conversation, he has an amazing vocabulary that often turns heads, but when he tries to compose a short paragraph about something we might have done over the weekend, it sounds like a 4 year old wrote it.

Additionally, he has moderate dyslexia, which has been masked by his superior visual-spatial skills. He has memorized the shapes of so very many words that he has appeared to be reading right on grade level. In the dyslexia eval, though, he could read the word "boy" but had no clue what "oy" said. Just one example of *many* that showed he cannot actually decode words.

On the bright side, our son continues to impress us with his strengths. Again, he was in 1st grade last year, in a Sped behavior room largely learning nothing. He then grade-skipped from 1st to 3rd and received additional subject acceleration in Math. As we near the end of this year, I'm happy to report that DS finished 3rd and 4th grade Math this year and has begun working on 5th. His GT teacher expects he will be able to finish 5th and 6th grade Math next year (in 4th) and then perhaps be ready to take an Algebra Readiness Assessment. DS is also into chemistry (he's learning all about electron shells!) and computer coding lately. He still dislikes school and complains at the lack of STEM and project-based learning opportunities.

Now that we know what we're dealing with on the LD side of 2e, I'm excited to try to start remediating those things. I've ordered the Barton system to try to tutor him with over the summer, and he'll receive some Sped and Speech help at school too. (Inadequate, to be sure, but better than nothing.) My greatest hope is that remediation will eventually help lessen his Anxiety, and allow his strengths to shine even brighter.

I'm beginning to doubt that this will EVER get any easier. But when I'm feeling optimistic, I tell myself that knowledge is power, and we've certainly gained a LOT more knowledge about our son this year than we've ever had before.
League, this is wonderful news! It sounds like you are making great progress on both the enrichment and the remediation end. I am guessing the first will do wonders for your son's motivation, and both will go a long way to help the anxiety.

You are doing a fantastic job here. It may never be completely easy, but you will find a rhythm. And when you feel the happiness growing in your child as his needs start to be met, as he gets challenged and engaged and feels success in tackling hard stuff and finally being able to succeed with it and the anxiety begins to ebb away - - - well, that feeling is pretty amazing. For both of you. Hugs and all the best for the great support you are providing him.
So happy for you and your DS, League! I find that, for many learners, it is very helpful when frustrated by a task to be able to say to oneself, "oh, that's just the [dyslexia, dysnomia, dysgraphia]; I'll use my strategies," so that the disability begins to become just a part of one's profile of strengths and weaknesses, not a mark of global failure.
Your son’s situation sounds so similar to my daughter’s. My daughter is in third grade and she was diagnosed with dysgraphia though I suspect there is some stealth dyslexia and dyspraxia occurring as well. Her IQ was ridiculously high but I think the school is still somewhat reluctant to believe it because her writing is so poor. They keep trying to tell me she struggles in math thought she got a 128 on quantitative reasoning (97th percentile) on the IQ test. Her achievement test scores were all in the average range except the written expression which of course was abysmal.

I’m looking to accommodate through typing and/or speech recognition software. I was told that they are still required to spell every word if they have a scribe which would be too burdensome for my daughter whose spelling is atrocious. I alternate from being completely depressed and overwhelmed to feeling confident that we got this. It ain’t easy! I can relate!
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