Thank you all so much for your input - I do know some more details of his testing session, as I went by and picked up his report. He scored a 132 on verbal and a 125 on non-verbal -- subtests scores were:

Nonverbal
FR - 18
KN - 9
QR - 16
VS - 12
WM - 14

Verbal
FR - 15
KN - 14
QR - 15
VS - 15
WM - 15

As you can see, his Non-Verbal Knowledge score is fairly low -- I had a feeling something was going to be off right after the test, because he told me afterwards that he had fun, but knew he'd gotten some wrong. I assured him that was okay (although he didn't seem upset about it!) just so long as he did his best. He said, "Well, I didn't do my best." Then he continued, "There were these pictures, like one was a flower, and they had other pictures underneath them. She would say, "What do you do with a flower?" and I said, "I don't know." Then before she turned the page I saw the watering can, and I knew that was the right answer, but didn't think I could change my answer." I told him that was okay -- I'm sure they allowed for things like that, and he said, "Well, I did that a lot of times." Very nonchalant. Little stinkpot. So I get the feeling that at least on that part of the test he was just answering quickly without really thinking.

(It's funny the things that he knows that they'd never test him on. For instance, the other day I found a note typed onto my iPhone from him (it's filled with all sorts of little poems and stories he writes on there) that I hadn't seen from last year, entitled 'Words That Don't Seem Like They Are' followed by a list: qat, xi, qi, cwm, and qoph. He can tell you what they all mean due to the fact that he loves to play Scrabble - and wins against adults as often as not - and we always make him look up words he plays when he can't tell us the definition. Plus he calculates his own score, which of course involves addition as well as multiplication -- we check him, but he's almost always right. Of course there's all sorts of other weird stuff he knows that wouldn't be part of an IQ test, and his vocabulary is huge, really. I'm sure you all are familiar with what I'm talking about. You just wish they could talk to them for a couple of hours and then base some of the score on that!)

Also, she said 99.9th percentile to both my husband and me on separate occasions -- I thought I'd misheard of misremembered, but he said he remembered her saying it, too, then actually showed me the paper he'd been taking notes on while she talked, and it said '99.9%' right on it. I know that's not right -- I don't think he even scored 99.9% on any of the subtests unless it was NVFR, so I have no idea what she was talking about!

Just curious, JaneSmith -- did they give any thoughts of a particular reason for the big discrepancy on that one test?

I just wanted to put my son's scores out there because Dottie had mentioned individual scores so I thought I'd give more info on the results, but your answers and advice have made me feel so much better -- thank you JaneSmith, Dottie and gratified3! In the beginning it feels like so much is riding on a documented IQ score -- it's wonderful to know that other things will go towards identifying him in the school system, and that achievement tests are worthwhile and that there is talent search testing available so young.

And I also appreciate the input on the SB LM -- very helpful to know!

Another question -- if I do get him tested in another year or 2, is there a way to pick a test that would focus more on his strengths? He's obviously very verbal, but one of the other kind of strange things about him has to do with numbers and memory, and this used to put me in mind of Rainman when my son was little, although thank goodness this psychologist said she didn't see any reason to suspect Asperger's or any other form of autism. Anyway, he loves music, and not only has his own collection but at a young age raided our collection, too. He has well over 200 cd's in his room, ranging from Raffi to Johnny Cash, the Cure to John Coltrane (on a side note, it's very funny to hear your 3 year old call out from his room, "There's an ant crawling on my Thelonious Monk CD!"). At 3 years old, some random song might come on the radio, and to be honest by that time he had so many cd's that I didn't even know what he had anymore, and he would pipe up, "Hey! That's 'Is She Really Going Out With Him' by Joe Jackson! It's #3 on my 'Look Sharp' cd, and it lasts 3 minutes and 35 seconds, the same as 'Redemption Song' which is #5 on my Bob Marley cd, 'Uprising'!" (Don't check those numbers -- just making them up for the purpose of example!) So occasionally I'd quiz him about a random song I'd come up with that I knew he owned, and without fail he always knew the artist's name, cd title, number that the song was and how long it lasted to the second, and could always list a string of other songs that were exactly as long and all the details about them. If a particular song was on more that one cd he could tell you all that info for both versions. And believe me, we checked, and he wasn't ever mistaken. It was really weird - almost creepy, actually. I don't know what all that means, except he has an exceptional memory, but oddly didn't score but a 14 and 15 on the working memory part of the test.

So is there a way to find the best test to hone in on his strengths? Also, what do you tell them before they test? I was so worried about making him feel pressured that I'm thinking I might've made it sound TOO unimportant!

Again, thank you all so much for your advice -- it has set my mind so much more at ease. Coming from you all who've been there and beyond it is really wonderful to read!

Ugh -- wrote another book.... sorry!