Jill-
Re: learning differences an excellent book that addresses every concern you've listed is "The Mislabeled Child" by the Eides.
Dysgraphia (handwriting problems) is explained very well in that book and they connect it with giftedness in the chapter called "the Midas Touch". It seems the kid's working memory is so loaded with ideas and processing creativity that the body doesn't allot or have room to allot time to developing automaticity in handwriting. For my son, the 2nd grade year really brought these problems into light. This, his 3rd grade year, has seen regression in handwriting ability :^(. It's a bit heart breaking, but we are finding alternative methods of written expression and in those areas his written expression is usually 6th-8th grade!
I'm pretty certain your son will qualify for SPED services, although your district might need you to educate them on the IDEA2004's laws in the area of 2E. SPED then needs to be a strengths based process for your son, if you should chose that route. Then advocate from both perspectives. We've been doing that this year. Our son has an IEP. We've gotten his disabilities accomodated (scribing, learning keyboarding -- that we've taught, using tape recorders and bullet writing as well as remediation in language arts and writing, etc). We managed to get him placed from the lowest ability cluster to the highest to begin addressing his learning needs from the gifted aspect. Hopefully next year will see a grade skip.
The rote memory issues can be indicative of a lot of things, including giftedness.
Sometimes kids with auditory discrepancies will score high in perceptual reasoning or analytical reasoning but low in the verbal areas. Dyspraxia, which is my son's official diagnosis (among other things:^( ), see scores the other way around with the verbal high and the perceptual low.
Processing speed issues can affect the other scores (for example he may need to take extra time to think through all his ideas to get to the answer the tester wants) , although a lot of psychologists and test administrators don't understand that. So, it is very likely your child's scores in the high area are even higher if the timing factor is removed. The WISC can be performed untimed, but most evaluators won't do that.
RE: spelling, my Mite, now 9, was a horrible speller. We finally added spelling to the IEP and now the teacher has to go over the errors Mite makes and allow him a shot orally. His spelling went from 40%ish on the pre-tests to 90%ish!! In other words, he can SPELL he just cannot handwrite what he knows. So, now we practice everything orally and noticed he has improved even in his written spelling.
This is getting rambly long; so, I'll stop now.
Grab that Mislabeled Child. It will really enlighten you. Read the section on "Gone in 60 Seconds", then "Handwriting or HandWringing" then the "Midas" section. It all becomes so clear why a highly gifted kid will stumble in handwriting and other areas.
