Thank you mich, I like the analogy. He's just started middle school and I do believe that's causing some of his recent frustrations. The evaluator did note that the difference between his VCI and all the other scores were likely to occur in less than 1% of children his age.
The evaluator did a battery of tests (he was with her for 7 hours) which included all you mentioned and then some. These were just a few of them: Green's Word Memory Test (WMT), Integrated Visual & Auditory Continuous Performance Tets (IVA+), Wisconsin Card Sorting Tests (WCST), Dichotic Listening Test, Trail Making Test, Stroop Color-Word Test, Test of Written Launguage, 3rd Edt (TOWL-3), Ray Complex Figue Test, Wide Range Assesment of Memory & Learning (WRAML-2), WJTCA, WISC-IV. Those were most of the academic type tests and then she gave just as many that related to fine motor skills, and behaviors such as ADD, OCD, PDD, Anxiety and Aspergers.
Overall, he did average to superior on the academic tests listed above except when it was timed or involved writing. NVLD does have many similarities to Aspergers such as the social, motor skills, visual/perceptual acuity etc. Organization and struggling with abstacts are clearly an issue for him as well. She ruled out NVLD because his visual skills were in the average range. The Aspergers diagnose was confirmed in part by the extremity of his social difficulties and language pragmatics as well as the severity of the neuropychological development issues. He also has a diagnosis of OCD which unfortunately revolves around some major fear of contamination, particularly in the school setting and by other children. He also was diagnosed with a NOS Learning Disorder (processing speed and fine motor difficulties with writing). His OT had already diagnosed him previously with Dysgraphia. All of this has contributed to a whole lot of anxiety for him at school that I imagine makes focusing on academics even more difficult.
Thanks also Mam for the suggestion of the 2E board, I know I'll benefit from it. It's frustrating trying to get the schools to deal with a child whose both gifted and has a disability such as AS. The giftedness has been able to compensate somewhat for the disabilty for several years but the older he gets the harder it becomes. Thanks for everyone's help!
