They were impressed he could spell hat!
hnz, what grade is he in? If he's in anything above kindergarten, I think I'd be concerned about the level of instruction for most kids in his school (seriously!).
Anyway, re 2e and testing - for my kids, school testing didn't work out terribly well because of lack of motivation on the part of the school staff to really understand what was going on. Having a full neuropsych workup that included executive functioning etc type tests really helped *me* tremendously as a parent because I was able to understand the challenges - what was causing issues and how to accommodate/remediate.
With any testing (private or through school) it's really important to understand what subtests are involved, what each subtest requires the child to do, whether or not it's timed or untimed, how the question is asked (oral vs reading etc), how the question is answered (oral vs written etc), were there ceilings on the test, and what was the behavior of your child during the testing (anxiety, rushing, relaxed etc). You know that your ds was anxious and that potentially skewed the results. You can also look at the individual subtest scores to see if anything correlates with areas you've seen your ds struggle in school. It sounds like you might not know whether or not there were ceilings on the achievement testing and whether or not your ds hit them. If you don't know, ask for that info - the school should be able to tell you.
I would also ask the person who administered the test how they replied when your ds asked if he was "doing well". I don't know if there are guidelines re what a tester can and can't say during the test, but if it was my child asking the questions, whether or not their anxiety was reduced might depend on how that question was answered. In *every* situation where my children have been tested (with the exception of school) the tester has given us suggestions re what to tell our children prior to testing about what to expect and what the purpose of the testing is - so that our kids don't go into it worried about "doing well". With school, there was no prior work at making sure the kids understood it was testing just to understand how they learned, and that they should just answer with what they thought was the answer and not worry about getting answers "right" etc - and there was also no specific forewarning re what day it would happen. My ds, for instance, was pulled out of an elective class which he'd been looking forward to for months on the morning after he'd had a huge fall while ice skating and had a huge huge headache. He was not a happy camper! And the tester was downright mean - saying things like "I know you can do better" etc. All that said, my ds works ok under pressure and I think his results were valid. For a kid who was anxious about testing, it would have been a disaster.
I can't remember - has your ds ever had a neuropsych eval? Are you positive there isn't something more behind the sensory and anxiety?
Best wishes,
polarbear
