Thank you polarbear. We've given both dictation and typing a try with little success. I think what you describe in difficulty forming expressive language sounds very much like what he struggles with. He's seeing a speech pathologist now (she's auditory testing him). I'll definitely request the TOWL.
He has difficulty expressing his emotions so I wonder if there is a connection.
There might be a connection - you might want to pay attention to and think through what types of situations lead to easy flow of conversation vs lack of conversation with him (same for written work). Our ds didn't appear to have an expressive language issue because there were things he could talk about, and when he talked he sounded like the highly intelligent kid that he is - but if you paid close attention, those conversations where the words flowed easily were conversations that centered on factual information or ideas he could put together with facts he knew, such as how he might want to build a better roadway etc. When he was asked to answer an open-ended question he struggled. This was impacting his writing at school from day one, but the difference in ability to respond to different types of prompts wasn't that apparent until he was around 4th grade and the level of writing assignment in the classroom increased past basic learn-to-write exercises. It was around the same age that he began to be able to explain to us that he was having trouble answering questions during conversations. When he was younger, he seemed to be intimidated when talking to teachers - he'd be very quiet, and want either myself or my dh to talk for him - we attributed this to his age, but really it was due to lack of having a clue what to say or how to carry on the conversation. DS went through around 4-5 years of speech therapy for expressive language once we realized there was a challenge, and that helped tremendously... but now that he's a teen we can still see signs of the same type of challenges, and expressing what he's thinking and feeling don't come naturally to him, he has to work at it.
polarbear
