I didn't want to hijack Lepa's thread, but I had a question about this quote from AEH:

"However, at this age, cognitive development is still quite fluid, so it is not at all unreasonable that this might represent asynchronous development."

AEH - Could you expand on your thought here? As my DS(now)7 (happy birthday sweetie!) has struggled, one thing I have wondered about is how asynchony applies to particular academic skills. We often hear about how PG kids can be wildly out of sync with respect to social/emotional issues versus intellect. And we hear that the further out on the bell curve they are, the more we can expect to see struggles with this.

But what I have wondered is whether the asynchrony may also apply to particular academic skills. For example - is it possible that stealth dyslexia is sometimes actually later development of the part of the brain that does that symbol translation task? And so stealth dyslexia is really the kid's brain saying "I'm not ready to read yet. But if you're going to force me to try, I'm going to have to do it my way, not yours. Because my brain doesn't support that symbol translation thing yet." And the further out on the bell curve they are, the more we might expect to see effects of this type of asynchrony?

And then the knock down effect - because the stealth dyslexic kid is forced to create a workaround, and never really learns the symbol translation bit, reading craters at some point in the academic career.

Or, if they're lucky, the stealth dyslexic does somehow pick up the symbol translation bit (maybe being re-exposed at the time the brain DOES develop for this task) and the reading/writing manifestations of dyslexia disappear.

But in this case - the stealth dyslexic kid was never actually dyslexic. Just asynchronous in the cognitive development needed for symbol translation, etc. Obviously, this would be important in finding the right way to support a given child's growth.

I think there is precedent for this. For example, babies don't have object permanence (e.g., when the toy gets put under the blanket it no longer exists). And I think I recall learning that kids don't have abstract thinking until a certain age, so can't really do algebra until this cognitive ability develops.

Maybe this relates to the chunk learning I've seen in DS and heard about in other PG kids. He was basically ignorant of what written numbers meant until suddenly he wasn't. Within a few days, he learned numbers up to 10 and could also add and subtract.

And - yes - I'm wondering because my stealth dyslexia assessed DS is suddenly sounding out words like phonics is the most natural thing in the world. And this before we sorted out how do deliver dyslexia therapies to him in any form at all.

Thanks for any thoughts you have, This is all so difficult ....

Sue