I would say that I am very much like what you are describing, and so is my DS7.
I think it's a matter of needing to hear the words the way you see them, if that makes sense. I don't have to read aloud, but to concentrate on something a lot of times it's necessary to read each word in my head like I was saying it aloud--otherwise, the other noises in my head and around me will drown it out and I find that I have read the same paragraph three times and have no idea what it said. This is for things I need to learn, not really for normal reading, which I do voraciously. If I'm trying to figure something out, I need to say the words in my head in order to "hear" them over the other things that I'm thinking about at the same time. It's the same reason that I need to see things in writing rather than hear them, because they go in one ear and out the other and get lost in all the thoughts in between. A child may need to actually read things aloud in order to make sense of them, before he learns to do the same thing inside his head--I think my DS7 does most of it in his head, but sometimes he really should do it aloud because he misses things.
It sounds like you're getting a real handle on all of this, and that should help tremendously!
