So his EI eval definitely found language skills slightly below cognition (the gap has widened even further, since), and articulation markedly below both cognition and language. Articulation delays can affect phonics and phonological awareness significantly, as they break sound-symbol correspondence (the sound he produces when he says or reads a word does not match the spelling/phonemes, because he is not using standard articulation). Notably, you listed a number of motor coordination tasks that were late developing for him, which suggests that there may be some kind of motor planning or motor coordination, or automaticity factor in play, which would indicate that further evaluation by an occupational therapist (and possibly a physical therapist, if there are lingering gross motor delays) might be in order. I distinguish between novel motor activities and routine motor activities, as he is described as having strengths on several creative and novel perceptual-motor tasks (Block Design, Legos, etc.). Handwriting is another issue, as are bike-riding, swimming, tying shoelaces, learning to swing, holding a fork properly, dressing oneself, etc.
And, as an aside, I have every sympathy for the school evaluator, as that is my professional role as well. But the reality is, most training programs allot very little instructional time to GT, let alone 2e. I have benefited from many other sources of skill development.
Thank you so much for taking time to share your wealth of knowledge here. I really appreciate it. Everyone has been so helpful. I feel like I now have some idea where to go from here, which is so much better than feeling like there is something my son desperately needs but having no idea how to help him.
All of those routine motor tasks you listed have been a struggle at some point. I don't think he's terribly outside the norm, but he's always been so resistant to being taught or even encouraged to attempt these things. Since having DD2 (who seems pretty NT), I've really realized how 'different' my son can be. She doesn't know her alphabet, she mixes up the colors and counts out of order, but she likes to try to emulate grown ups, she responds (usually) to correction and she plays make-believe (which he never did. He played "race the cars across the floor" almost exclusively for years).
