My son is 2e and has difficulties with certain aspects of testing (for example, he sometimes refuses to do things due to lack of confidence and has difficulty with writing due to fine motor issues).
For example, he refused to do the writing part of his educational assessment for his IEP because he is used to having writing assistance and no one explained to him why he couldn't type or have assistance, so they scored him as being unable to answer
Does he have a 504 plan or an IEP in place? If he is formally receiving accommodations in the classroom on testing, he should receive the same accommodations on testing for the gifted program.
Additionally, his social delays interfere with his ability to show skills on the checklist like leadership.
FWIW, my ds also didn't appear "gifted" in the generic terms that many teachers "see" as gifted - so he also didn't get boxes such as leadership checked off on the checklist our district had. In fact, he showed so little outwardly toward teachers in terms of intellectual differences (they all saw the 2nd e as defining him) that his teachers first refused to refer him for gifted assessment, and then when we (parents) referred him the teacher claimed she couldn't fill out the teacher checklist because she didn't know him well enough. What worked for us (we did get him in - this was elementary school) was advocating with the private testing we had and just not giving up. DS is also one of those kids who, in spite of scoring extremely high on the WISC scored lower than the gifted program cut-off on the CogAT, which is our school district's first-round gifted program screen, and he was given the CogAT *with* his IEP accommodations.
Although I don't know anything about your specific school district, you were successful in getting a grade skip for your ds, so I suspect that you'll be able to advocate successfully to get him into the gifted program.
I'd start right now with finding out what exactly the policy for qualification is in your district, then dig into finding out why it would be such a long delay until you find out if he qualifies. I'd also request that he have the same accommodations on his gifted program screening if he receives accommodations regularly in the classroom.
Best wishes,
polarbear
