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Kriston, when you say verbal from a few months old, what do you mean?

Yeah, the other areas of writing and sound things out do sound GT-ish to me. (Then again, what do I know?)

JB

Kriston - that's really interesting about the reading. Your son reminds me so much of ds5 so I find myself rooting for him. ds5 can read words but often does not want to read them in a book. I'm just figuring he's not ready to put it all together yet? But sometimes he will read a whole sentence or line with little trouble. I'm so happy for your breakthrough.

That's great!!

It does seem Mr W will do the same things for a week or two then jump to a new plane.

I remember reading a longitudinal study of physical growth in kids and they used the term "saltation" - the growth was not uniform, but pulse-like or in spurts. I think this is also true cognitively because Mr W seems to do the same thing mentally.

Kriston and (LadybugMom),

You said you had your DS 4.5 checked but was that just for eyesight? I ask this b/c my cousin's little boy was slow with reading (Not saying your DS is slow at all!!!) and being the second child they didn't jump on it. It was not until this summer (right before 2nd grade) after confirming he was not dyslectic and a few other oblivious choices they discovered that his brain was not functioning properly and though he tried to focus on the line his eyes would bounce all over the page. The odd thing is one of my BF has a brother that had the same issue. My cousin's son has been in therapy and since this summer has caught up with his respectable grade and is now a solid 2nd grade reader. From my understanding the issue is a sensory problem that causes the brain to dance the eyes around the page. For the most part children affected with this issue are high energy to the point of ADD/ADHD.

Just food for thought.

No, the developmental optometrist doesn't just check for what we would traditionally think of as eyesight. It's all the "stuff" that goes along with vision and processing. The sort of "eye bouncing" you're describing is exactly the kind of thing a DO looks for, and is exactly what I was worried about. The kid can name the symbols on an eye chart, but he was refusing to look at words in a book. Well, kids don't read from half a room away, so the eye chart thing didn't tell us much!

I don't think what you're describing is what my DS4 is dealing with exactly, but I think he may have something else along those same lines that's interfering.

So good question!

Oh, and LadybugMom: Thanks! That's so nice. I really appreciate the rooting. I'm rooting right back!

We're lucky in that DS5.5 has an eye issue where one eye was being ignored by his brain. I forget the actual condition, but it makes him look crosseyed if he's not wearing his glasses. It didn't seem to affect his learning much, but since he only was using one eye his depth perception was off so he's lagging some in coordination. Something like 50% of children outgrow glasses with this condition so we're fortunate.

JB

Amblyopia? AKA, 'lazy eye', they used to patch the 'good eye' so the brain was forced to use the 'lazy eye'. My older sister is legally blind in one eye because she wouldn't keep the patch or her glasses on as a young child.

Strabismic amblyopia I think. Patch wouldn't work for DS, but apparently the glasses are working (which is good as surgery is the only other option).

JB

DD 3.5months started sitting up this week!

They grow so fast! Next thing you know DD will be into everything.