Thank you for all of the responses. As far as the dyslexia thing goes, my son is actually a great reader, but his teacher is concerned about his resistance to sounding out new words (which he can do, but it seems to require a lot more effort than it should) and the fact that he reverses his letters even with years of practice at writing. He also occasionally spells words backwards. He also sometimes guesses a word when reading, but based on the last letter in the word rather than the first, which might be normal, but I don't remember ever doing it.
The IU just repeats the same old line of we don't expect a child to write without reversals or even read at all, so it's not a problem. The preschool teacher believes that errors only make sense for children who are not as familiar with the letters, not a kid who knew them all before 18 months and has been obsessed with them (in addition to numbers) pretty much ever since he was old enough to see (as an infant when I read to him he only looked at the words and not the pictures, I was so concerned by this behavior!). He also reverses numbers.
Another thing I notice about him is that he can complete math problems much better in his head than on paper. This is completely counter-intuitive to me! As soon as math is written down he fights doing it, but when we are in the car he asks for math challenges the whole ride.
I spoke to the head OT at our private therapy today and she said we are going to mainly focus on body awareness, motor planning, and anxiety during the next 6 months. His BOT 2 scores ranged from 34 (well above average) for fine motor integration to 0 (well below average) for upper limb coordination.
This is a kid who can write very neatly, but can't open the screen door or the car door. He cuts beautifully, but can't get the scissors on his hand right without help, or even on his right hand. He hates to try new things or to do anything even remotely challenging. Transitions to difficult or novel activities usually end in very violent tantrums.
Every test we have done leads us closer to answers as to what is going on with the poor kid. He really is a sweet child and so easy to be with as long as there are no real demands placed on him. Out of the house he has to control everything and can't handle the slightest deviation from what he had in mind.
He's clearly got a disability, he has been in therapy since 2. We just need to figure out what it is so that we can actually help him. My concern with the IQ test is just getting accurate and useful results. I certainly wouldn't mind if they confirmed what I have been saying for years about how advanced he is, but even if his IQ isn't amazing, his academic achievement can't be denied. He is clearly reading and doing math at a beginning 3rd grade level (average, he's probably got some gaps as I'm not a teacher and some areas very advanced, even to adult level). I don't know any other kids his age who are like him, he's amazing and super challenging and we love him that way
