My ds13 has an expressive language disorder which wasn't diagnosed until he was around 10 years old. His challenge shows up much more in written expression, same kind of challenge though - he's very strong in math and reading, and sounds like he's a-ok verbally too - unless you pay close attention and realize that he can talk up a storm about factual things he knows about, but is stumped by expressing abstract ideas. His challenges first showed up at school when he would appear to freeze over open-ended writing assignments (starting in 2nd grade). In hindsight, his conversations when he was younger, although complicated, deep, clearly evident of high IQ - were all focused on factual things that he knew about or engineering type ideas he'd dreamed up - things that could be built. He never engaged in imaginary play when he was little. He's ok socially though - he reads social cues a-ok, has friends, etc. His largest challenge there is that his expression doesn't always show what he really feels inside.
The key for ds has been repetition, repetition, repetition.... on and on and on. Nothing is automatic, so it takes lots of repetition... which of course means progress can seem very slow.
The thing that's helped our ds most is speech therapy with an SLP. It's a long haul thought - he's been working with an SLP for 2 1/2 years now, and I'm guesstimating that he'll continue with his SLP for at least another year (as long as he's continuing to make progress). Progress is slow - if I showed you examples of his work that were only 1-2 months apart, you'd probably not notice any difference, but his SLP will pull up examples from a year ago or longer, do a similar exercise, and we can really see the progress. I can also look back 2-3 years and see amazing progress - not amazing compared to a neurotypical kid, but amazing still.
I'll also add (jmo) - I think I see faster and better progress as ds gets old enough that the material he is working with at school is a better intellectual fit. He *had* to work through basics to develop any kind of writing ability at all and those came slow to him, but once he was able to apply what he'd learned and at the same time was in a challenging environment at school, he began to write really well. It is still not easy to get the thoughts organized and out of his head, but when he is able to get his ideas out, they come out sounding like the EG kid that he is. Note - this isn't the same thing as a typically developing gifted child not producing work at their level until they are challenged - he absolutely definitely has a true challenge with written expression - it's simply been easier to help him remediate and make progress as he's been able to be appropriately intellectually challenged at school. I SO didn't explain that very well - sorry!
That's all I can think of at the moment - Portia has some great advice!
Best wishes,
polarbear
