Kriston, do you think he really needs you to restate the question, or is he using that strategy to buy time for processing his answer (i.e. producing language which you already know is difficult for him)?
I think he really doesn't understand. After restating/rewording a couple of the developmental pediatrician's questions to him, I got worried that she'd think I was a control freak, so I didn't say anything after one of her questions. I just waited. He looked at me the way one looks at a translator when one doesn't understand the langage: expectantly and with a sense of growing helplessness and fear when I didn't say anything. He wasn't thinking. He was waiting for me to help him.
Kriston, does your son attend any external classes? What does the teacher say? I had had one or two comments that ds would volunteer unrelated information, but I didn't think much of it till the diagnosis.
He does attend a school-for-homeschoolers part time. However, he's probably *the* youngest kid in his classes, and he's so smart that I think he covers pretty well. His kindergarten teacher didn't really see it. But teachers of kids this age tend to "talk down" to kids--including repeating the same basic directions multiple times and using easy vocab--and people who do those things are far easier for him to understand.
He doesn't generally volunteer unrelated info in class, I don't think. At least not in any way that's unusual for a 6yo. But he *does* interrupt conversations with non sequiturs at home all the time. It's not rudeness. He's a kid who values manners. It's like he just doesn't even hear that people are talking. That's actually one of the things that made me think something wasn't right. It's like conversations going on around him are just background noise.
I suspect he comes off as a "normal" 6yo to his teachers right now. But so far I haven't see a lot of improvement in how well he understands what he hears, and I think there will come a day in the near future when more is expected of him and he just won't be able to give it. He'll seem inattentive or rude or not smart or like he doesn't care when (I think) the problem is really that he simply doesn't understand what is said to him.
I can't help thinking that college lectures will be a nightmare for him if we don't work on coping mechanisms early. Like now!
