Grinity, we did have a really great tester. We saw Dr. Amend. I think I saw on a previous post that you consulted him as well. It's such a blessing to be so close to someone that knowledgeable.
Yes! You are blessed indeed.
As for keyboarding. I would take a few stabs at it without much expectation at age 6. On one hand you don't want him to learn 'bad habits' if he picks it up on his own. On the other hand, I don't know if even PG 6 year olds can learn to type - with my son we had a few big pushes around age 8, but the results weren't noticable until age 9. If frustration is an issue, one needs to walk a very tight line, but in a way, it can be a very useful thing to have an example of something that needs to be learned by sheer 'hours in equals results over time' - like the bamboo plant!
We did 15 minutes a day for 3 weeks and left it alone for several months.
I would also recommend to work on handwriting with the 'Handwriting without tears' materials, maybe 5 minutes a day for 3 weeks every few months. I love drawing the little smile face under the prettiest letter, and I love their special lined paper. Even MY handwriting improved with that special paper! I did it with my son, and he got to put the smile faces under my prettiest letters. I figured that way he could develop some recognition of the goal, but he loved that it was a mutual project.
My DS was one of those ones that just had to 'be older' before the handwritting 'kicked in' even though he was keyboarding during school - in 7th grade, age 11. Out of the blue! I guess hormones are good for something.
I'm curious about what guidance you got for parenting this Intense boy. Are you going to kick the academics up a notch? My favorite book for parenting these 'easy to frustrate' kids is Lisa Bravo's "Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook."
Yippee!
Grinity
