"The people making these determinations don't usually make mistakes."
I'll join in with KADmom on this. We started down this path when a pre-school teacher insisted DS7 needed to be assessed for Asperger's. The psychologist who assessed him (at 3.5) administered the WPPSI and told us he was highly gifted.
But .... 2 years later he still wasn't reading, and while he seemed to have a huge vocabulary, and interesting reasoning abilities, we sort of wrote the high IQ report off as a product of being an only child whose parents talked to him a lot. Maybe we had inadvertently hot-housed him, though we are decidedly more banana slug than tiger.
At 6, when his school troubles were peaking, we had him re-assessed as part of full neuropsych workup that included WISC-IV. His IQ scores came back even higher, in the PG range. He had some serious achievement discrepancies and was assessed as likely dyslexic/dysgraphic.
Shortly after the report was finalized, he suddenly had a huge burst, and in 2 months went from reading just below first grade level to reading above fifth grade level. And his school struggles began to diminish. Talk about whiplash! We honestly don't know what he needs - intense therapy or time to grow or both - and you can see a bunch of my hand-wringing over it in my posts over the past 6 months.
For now, like KADmom, we just follow his interests (currently Magic the Gathering and Greek mythology), give him tons of unconditional love and acceptance, and we work, work, work on helping him cope with his intensities so he can keep his behavior within the bounds he needs for function and happiness.
So - yes - follow your DD as best you can and enjoy the ride. And - I wouldn't doubt that diagnosis if I were you!
Sue
