Just wanted to follow up, now that we're a few months post-results. We took my son for an additional comprehensive private evaluation concerning his language and reading skills. I'm sharing more info here in case anyone with a similar kid reads this thread in the future and might glean something from it. I know I've found this forum's archives very useful.
Turns out, he does have an expressive language impairment (dysnomia; difficulty with word-finding). As I touched on before, this mostly shows up in his "writing" (which isn't writing in a traditional sense, as he uses a scribe due to severe dysgraphia). In conversation, he has an amazing vocabulary that often turns heads, but when he tries to compose a short paragraph about something we might have done over the weekend, it sounds like a 4 year old wrote it.
Additionally, he has moderate dyslexia, which has been masked by his superior visual-spatial skills. He has memorized the shapes of so very many words that he has appeared to be reading right on grade level. In the dyslexia eval, though, he could read the word "boy" but had no clue what "oy" said. Just one example of *many* that showed he cannot actually decode words.
On the bright side, our son continues to impress us with his strengths. Again, he was in 1st grade last year, in a Sped behavior room largely learning nothing. He then grade-skipped from 1st to 3rd and received additional subject acceleration in Math. As we near the end of this year, I'm happy to report that DS finished 3rd and 4th grade Math this year and has begun working on 5th. His GT teacher expects he will be able to finish 5th and 6th grade Math next year (in 4th) and then perhaps be ready to take an Algebra Readiness Assessment. DS is also into chemistry (he's learning all about electron shells!) and computer coding lately. He still dislikes school and complains at the lack of STEM and project-based learning opportunities.
Now that we know what we're dealing with on the LD side of 2e, I'm excited to try to start remediating those things. I've ordered the Barton system to try to tutor him with over the summer, and he'll receive some Sped and Speech help at school too. (Inadequate, to be sure, but better than nothing.) My greatest hope is that remediation will eventually help lessen his Anxiety, and allow his strengths to shine even brighter.
I'm beginning to doubt that this will EVER get any easier. But when I'm feeling optimistic, I tell myself that knowledge is power, and we've certainly gained a LOT more knowledge about our son this year than we've ever had before.
