Then Came Kindergarten!

When OLA entered Kindergarten the tarnishes started to become slightly more visible. But only in the learning category. Speech was still a problem at this point. His teacher said that she couldn't always understand him. He was referred to the school's speech therapist. But, like preschool she couldn't really find anything that stuck out. The two sounds she heard were still well within normal developmental time frames. He was also having a difficult time learning the names of the letters in the alphabet and their associated sounds. However, he could remember some sight words and he could memorize small spoken parts for class programs. Names of the days of the week and what order they come in are out of his reach. And so are the months of the year. Basics like penny and dime don't register either. And time - well forget it 30mins and 3 hours might as well be the same.  Number recognition isn't any better and shape recognition is inconsistent. At first parent teachers conference there was talk of his repeating kindergarten again. Has trouble working independently or completing some of the assigned tasks. The teacher at school was convinced that we were hovering too much and not letting him become responsible. Has difficulty with fine motor skills - can't color in the lines - writing is hard to read and cutting is also difficult.
At home he is becoming increasingly non - compliant and unresponsive to most forms of consequences. Time outs become battles. Will tell you no outright when ask to stop doing an activity that he is enjoying. If you try and redirect or issue a consequence then you have a crying , hitting, name calling, screaming tantrum that can last for a couple of hours. If you revoke a privilege he will ignore you completely and go ahead and do it anyway or if that's not possible he will turn into a destructive raging crazy person - who will break or rip anything within his reach.
He also doesn't seem to have any concept of right and wrong, good choice or bad, or what might be the resulting natural consequences for any given action. Nothing is ever his fault - it is always some one else's fault - because they did or didn't do something that he thinks they should. He can't remember rules and will even forget what he is going to say if you make him wait instead of letting him interrupt.
He can be volatile even when doing something enjoyable. One minute playing and laughing with his brother and the next hitting, kicking and biting - and a vast majority of the time his brother has done nothing to warrant the sudden outburst of rage.
At this point in his life - we were struggling to figure out what was happening with our child - why the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde change in ability and temperament. No one seemed to know - and outside  our home the tatters still weren't visible enough for most others to see. We were praying for answer that as of yet were not forth coming. It would be almost another year before information would start us on the path to what we think is the answer to all this craziness.