In a hurry so can't reply at the moment, but fwiw our ds12 has alanguage disorder. In his case, his receptive language is ok but expressive is the challenge. I'll come back later and let you know what we've done. FWIW, the "holes in parts of the brain" sounds like a great way to describe what our ds experiences!
polarbear
ps - has your ds had any kind of speech therapy / worked with a speech language pathologist?
Oh, thank you

He's had a little bit of speech therapy at school - one session per week - with a speech language pathologist. I'm hoping he qualifies again this year - I'm still waiting to find out.