Ya know, Floridamom,
My whole family had 'the itchies' growing up: tags felt scratchy, resturant seats always had a vent directly over the most sensitive person, socks a hassle, so when my son was born, I just expected those kinds of things to be difficult.
If I had known that OE's were correlated to Giftedness, I would certianly have gone on compensating. But I didn't, and in 2nd grade, in the search for 'what's wrong with him' we came across the idea of Sensory Integration, and got him some time with a private OT and the school OT. Of course who knows if it helped, or if he would have had a growth spurt in that area, but boy-oh-boy he sure did 'mature' those 6 months.
Bottom line - if suff is bothering him 90% of the time, you have a referal from an MD, if insurance is picking up the bill, and you don't have to stress over the 'one more thing' in your schedule - I say: "Give it a try!"
Your son may actually be compensating for much larger difficulties than anyone realizes, because he has the brainpower. Anyway, that's my advice based on my own experience.
We are still cutting the tags off of shirts at age 12, but shoes and socks are much much less of a big deal than they were back then.
BTW - some Very Highly Gifted People don't have any OverExcitabilities. Some have them but are so used to them that they seem like the normal way to be.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
