My youngest dd has something sorta similar - it's a little bit different in that her challenge is with a deficit in a type of memory that is used to associate symbols with meanings. She was able to learn to read, but it was much slower than we would have expected compared to her verbal abilities and ability to do math. Her writing looks a lot like she has dyslexia, but she's not dyslexic (per testing). She has a TON of anxiety.
We haven't had her tested yet by a neuropsych so I don't really have a name for what 's up with her - we instead had her go through ability/achievement testing with an educational consultant (former sped teacher). When dd was in the midst of the testing she was given audio phones to listen to a story (rather than read it) and it was like turning on the music for her - she came out of her testing so excited because she realized how much easier it was for her to "read" via audio than by trying to look at the words.
Anyway, it is probably not exactly the same type of challenge, but fwiw some of the same accommodations might be helpful for your ds. DD is supposed to listen to audiobooks to develop her comprehension and read lower level books to develop her ability to read visually. She's supposed to have a calculator to use for math work unless it's a test on timed math facts (which she's actually really good at).
She's also supposed to have a developmental optometrist evaluation soon, so that's our next step.
BTW, Zen Scanner - I think I've conversed with marytheres about this before, but fwiw my older dd has had severe double vision due to muscle weakness, and for her vision therapy was very successful. The reason I mention her here is that you mentioned shutting one eye to help - we learned that our dd's brain actually shut off the eyesight in one of her eyes subconsciously in order to help her get around having double vision - we could usually tell when it was shut off (once we knew) because she tilted her head to read etc. Just a thought, but if your ds has some of the same visual challenges you do, his brain might be switching one eye off without him realizing it. This significantly limits peripheral vision and I think it led to my dd being somewhat clumsy.
Best wishes,
polarbear
