My DS8 was diagnosed with Oral Motor Dyspraxia of Speech when he was 3. He was totally non verbal, and he couldn't even make basic sounds like "da"or "ba". He did not babble at all when he was a baby. He was also diagnosed with sever Mixed Receptive/Expressive Language Disorder at the same time. There were some subtle symptoms associated with the diagnosis. He could not stick his tongue out and move it around. He could not use a straw, (he had no idea how to suck) and he could not blow air. His 4-year-birthday was his first time that he could blow the candles out without any help!
His speech pathologist said he has Auditory processing Disorder as well, but he's got Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis, so I don't know which diagnosis is associated with which symptoms... It's complicated.
He had about 3 years of intensive speech therapy, and his articulation is fine now. His speech/language evaluation shows no significant delay in any area at age 8.
He still has some oral/facial muscle control issues, (he can't brink one eye at a time, or can't make certain facial expressions) but we are practicing these movements at home whenever we can.
As for his decoding ability, he was really good at it. He could "read/decode" 5+ letter words when he was about 18 months. Then shortly after, he started spelling those words that he had memorized from books and DVDs with magnetic letters. He could spell more than 200 words when he was 2. So I would say, yes he had an excellent memory. Also, I'm not sure if this is related to "rote memorization", but his Working Memory Index score on WISC-IV is 144.
I hope you'll find some answers.
Best wishes!
