Thank you aeh and polarbear for your thoughtful replies. I will do my best to follow up with questions you each posed.
I have 1 more result to share, which adds to the somewhat-dismal mood of the eval. It says he took the Academic Fluency measures from the WJ-IV to assess his ability to rapidly complete basic academic tasks. Results were poor:
Sentence Reading Fluency 81, 11th percentile
Math Facts Fluency, 93, 32nd
Sentence Writing Fluency, <40, 0.1 percentile, couldn't complete, struggled to understand instructions, made errors on practice items, test discontinued.
Oh and for the heck of it:
CogAT from last May, at the end of 1st grade (which was the above-level if perhaps slightly outdated Form 6 Level A):
Verbal Raw 53, USS 184, SAS 118
Quant Raw 59, USS 232, SAS 144
Nonverbal Raw 61, USS 217, SAS 132
Composite Raw 173, USS 211, SAS 138
MAP from Fall of this year (3rd grade)
Math: 225 / 99th
Reading 289 / 53rd
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aeh: Thank you for calculating that NVI for me. I know it's pedantic and feels a bit like picking-and-choosing, but it does give me more 'proof' that my son is more than his challenges. (But, omg, his challenges!)
The eval says that he performed in the Low range on a task of writing mechanics (grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling) that required him to combine multiple sentences into 1 sentence and compose his own complete sentences when presented with a target word. He was most challenged on an expository writing task that asked him to write a brief essay about a specific topic (Essay Composition, 0.5th percentile). Although provided 10 minutes, he only took 4 minutes to write an essay that was very brief and failed to meet the task requirements. His penmanship is immature for his age and he employed an awkward pencil grip. He also made several reversals of letters and digits but was able to visualize and later correct those errors.
In terms of expressive language, it's so strange and interesting. When he speaks to people, DS8 uses an amazing vocabulary. He was a kid who spoke in full sentences with words like 'chandelier' and 'perhaps' and 'brilliant' when he was 18 months old. Everyone that meets him at some point will comment on his crazy vocabulary. Furthermore, he can assimilate new words very quickly. If you use a new word 1-2x with him, he will often just suddenly turn around and use it correctly in conversation 2 weeks later without you ever knowing that he had learned it. However, when he is asked to write a story (even with scribing or keyboarding... so no actual physical writing involved), his stories are very basic and short, and he doesn't draw from his strong vocabulary. I'm entirely unsure what's going on with that.
As for composition, it does not surprise me that he is so low in that area. He has never been asked to write before, really, and has never been taught HOW to compose sentences/paragraphs/essays. This is a kid who was kept for 100% of his day in a special ed behavior room for most of last year, and who received NO NEW INSTRUCTION whatsoever (I was *livid* when I found this out) for nearly 3 months. In that light, his strong math skills amaze me. I am thinking that we definitely need to add IEP goals towards teaching him composition (though his defiance/anxiety/avoidance will not want this to happen), because right now the only writing goal he has is about learning more phonetics and being able to correctly write (i.e. spell) CCVC words accurately.
aeh, I am amazed that with as many people as you help through this forum, and presumably through your private practice, you say that DS8 has the most extreme 2e profile you've ever seen. Wow. That really confirms how I've been thinking about his peaks and valleys as more like Mt.-Freaking-Everest!
polarbear, I'm really wondering about expressive language disorder after reading what you wrote. I don't know where to begin with getting him evaluated further... a private SLP, I guess? The school has an SLP he is working with for some specific speech sounds but she does not seem open to further testing/diagnosing of anything. So I'm looking for CELF and TOWL evals, I guess? I don't even think my DS could *take* the TOWL.... he just can't write. Sigh.
An OT eval was also recommended for fine and gross motor skills.
I've always kind of consoled myself with thinking that, if I *had* to, I could eventually homeschool him, but it's really not preferred for a large number of reasons. His avoidance/defiance is such that I think I'd really struggle even getting his buy-in to actually sit down and work in homeschool. Seeing these results has me really overwhelmed. I don't see how his school is going to be able to help remediate such huge issues, but there's no good private school options in this area, either. And at least at public school, he has IEP/FAPE protections ... if he'd done the kinds of behaviors we saw last year (aggression) at a private school, I have no doubt we'd have been kicked out.
I still don't regret the whole-grade acceleration, because we have come so far from where we've been. Things still aren't perfect by any means, and my son still doesn't exactly enjoy school, to put it mildly. But as I stated earlier, he was in a special ed room doing only mastered work for a good long time before his giftedness was recognized. Skipping 2nd grade made him feel respected, more seen for who he really is, and he found some degree of confidence in his strengths. He is a MUCH happier kid since the acceleration and we've only had a few really minor incidences of aggressive behavior this year, compared to, in some cases, almost daily incidents last year that were much more intense. Socially it has been a good thing as well, even though he still doesn't have any 'real' friends, or a best friend.
His anxiety is so severe. We go to therapy but our therapist has to "use the back door" as she calls it, to work with him. He's deeply uncomfortable talking about his feelings at all, so basically his anxiety is so huge that he can't actually talk about his anxiety! So we haven't been able to do typical CBT or exposure response therapy. She just gently pushes him to understand others' perspectives and puts him in situations that cause him minor amounts of anxiety so she can try to help him cope. He's taking a fairly large dose of Zoloft, too, but it hasn't helped the anxiety abate. I'm thinking we might need to try another drug even though it's sort of the gold standard for pediatric anxiety.
For anyone who made it through all this, thank you so, so much. I am so desperate to somehow help my son, and I can't tell you how much it helps to have a place to discuss this stuff!
