Hi Blob,
My son has a few learning challenges that are very similar to what you describe. While he has never been formally tested by an audiologist, most experts suspect CAPD. Additionally, he has some executive functioning difficulties that manifest themselves in the way that he organizes, retrieves and expresses language. All at the same time, he is an auditory learner, and extremely verbal. Your description of your son hits home with me.
You ask if the additional s&l questions is overkill. It's hard to tell based on your short description. Would you mind filling in with a bit more background?
1. What prompted the evaluation that uncovered the processing deficits? How is he doing in school - what is he good at, does he struggle in any areas?
2. Is he at public school on an IEP? If so, what does he get for services? What are his goal areas? How is his progress?
3. Are there any familial LD's? Signs of attention problems? How is he at initiating and staying on task for undesirable activities (self care, cleaning room, homework etc)
4. When he was tested, did the evaluator comment on his ability to see the big picture vs the details?
5. How are his motor skills?
Organizational skills usually do not take care of themselves. In fact, as the complexity of life and school increases and the volume and demand increases, these organizational skills become more troublesome. People that have difficulty organizing their expressive language in conversation struggle with writing. They may have a plethora of good ideas, a sound knowledge of the facts, and ability catch on to new concepts, but they are often unable to express themselves fluently and coherently without extra time, scaffolding and structure. As the child moves up the grades, there performance in class discussions and on open response test items can suffer.
I am not predicting that this will happen with your son, but it has with mine. He never qualified for speech services because on structured tests he always scored in the 90 percentile or higher (superior range). Yet, when it comes to real life verbal expression, he struggles to get the words out - orally and on paper.
