Alexsmom, you have just described both dd and myself exactly. I took me until my 30s to understand this because I just thought (and I think teachers did too) that when this happened I was reaching the limits of my capabilities. It was extremely limiting. Once I realised it opened up a whole new world.
I see the same in dd. She has a FSIQ of >145 and if sit with her while she's stuck I can usually figure out the block eventually. But it's very time intensive and I only get there in the time I do because I know her well. It makes it extremely difficult in advocacy - she's skipped and in all the top groups in class, but because she gets blocked her teachers think she's reached her limit and seem to have the approach "skipped, top of the class - this is her limit and it's very much good enough". But once she's passed the block she can understand an entire concept without further instruction and it's there, locked in - but of course it'll be repeated at increasing levels of difficulty for years (elementary school). And her teachers only see that she was blocked so therefore she might know it now, but she didn't and so needs the repetition
It's happened again and again. Sorry - OT - just excited to hear the 'learns by epiphany thing described by someone else!!
