I think it goes to show the specific visual challenges. All the challenge areas would be realistic measures for children who learned to read by being trained on phonemes. Our visually challenged, whole word, self-taught readers don't do so well on nonsense words and exact word reading. As those skills don't map to their developmental trajectory.
I'm sure there are plenty of analogies, like musicians who play by ear, or kids who skip crawling and just start walking, or mathematicians who can't balance checkbooks, etc.
The neuropsych said that "his visual sequencing weaknesses make it difficult for him to decode words accurately" she advised me it's no problem to encourage sight word memorization and for him "to memorize the configuration of the word... as that's what he is doing anyway." This makes me uncomfortable because I am phonics girl (Catholic school and all), I emphasize phonics with him at but I guess he just learns differently.
