Some of the things on your list of weaknesses (emotionality, preference for spontaneity, impatience with rote work like workbooks) I associate with giftedness and would not see as weaknesses. Rather I would see them as differences that may be advantageous or not depending on the setting.
Taking the long view, these traits are, in my opinion, advantageous. They just make him not fit in well in elementary and middle school. The older he gets the more "positive" these traits will be and as an adult they will be highly valued.
Other things you listed as weakness sound like executive function problems. Weaknesses in EF are associated with many different neurological conditions including ADHD, ASD, psychiatric conditions like early onset bipolar and dyspraxia/motor planning. It can also be developmental and he just needs time to "grow into" the skills he needs, like being organized.
Children with these difficulties tend to "grow into" their disability as they progress in school if they are not developmental artifacts. The skills associated with good executive function become more important to their academic success especially once they reach middle school and that is often the first time they are clearly identified as having problems.
Whether it's a disability or not - well from an academic point of view it is. You can see how his constellation of strengths and weaknesses are causing him problems with basic math. It may well cause him problems with reading too once he progresses to middle school.
Your observation about coding may be right on the nose. The problem with not being able to do tasks involving unfamiliar or nonsense information is that you need to be able to make sense of this kind of information when you read higher level textbooks and do math. Think about how your brain works when you see a word you don't know, especially a complex one like deoxyribonucleic acid all spelled out or a complex math problem that includes square roots and scientific notation. Or think of geometry - it has a huge amount of vocabulary to understand and recall - all the different kinds of shapes and angles. First step is to make sense of "nonsense" information - which may be very difficult for someone with the kind of problems you describe. Between needing to hold the novel information in memory while the brain searches for related information to "hook" the new info to and his slower processing speed - this becomes a very difficult task.
My son has similar problems but definitely has slow processing too. His latest psychoed eval said he had difficulty accessing material that is overlearned by most students. As I understand it, this means he does not automatically recognize and make sense of very basic information like letters and numbers. He has to go through a mechanical sort of process in his head when he sees letters and numbers to make sense of it so coping with novel information like complex new words is very difficult.
I'm not sure if this is like your son's problems but I think my advice to you would be to take the long view. I suspect that your son is going to really struggle with math facts of all kinds and, like my daughter, may never get them down. But once he gets to the level of high school his ability to see the big picture will serve him well and he can use a calculator for the basic stuff. I would make sure that his IEP calls for direct instruction in math from special ed ASAP if it is not already set up that way.
One reason for this is that you may need several years of documentation of his inability to overlearn this information despite remedial instruction in order to get accommodations and modifications like use of a calculator on high stakes testing at the high school level.
If he has problems recalling or executing multiple step directions - at school that might be division problems - then you may be looking at a language processing issue that needs speech therapy or intensive special ed support to help him learn to retain and follow directions. My daughter struggles with this and I've been told this is because of her severe auditory processing issues.
Sorry I'm so long-winded. I think I was born that way.
Good luck,
Patricia
