Here my experience with the younger of my sons, Giacomo (Jack).
He had his first air tank in the pool at 2.5 years, and started diving in the sea, in Sardinia, at 4.5 years.
Both I and my wife are Cmas instructors and my wife is one of the few instructors certified for children of ages 3 and up.
My son was literally born in water, he was already swimming at 12 months in the pool, while of course he was not walking yet.
So in water he never had problems.
But he always had problems at school and with formal theoretical instruction.
We discovered the origin of the problem only much later, when he was at high school: he is dislexyc, and this explains why he could not learn anything reading a book...
After discovering the origin of the problem, he did learn how using different strategies at school, and this caused him to become a super-brilliant student. He got a master degree in biotechnology without any delay and he is now doing his PhD in the best Italian research lab in Milan.
Dislexy is a pain at school, but is a big advantage at the university and in research-related work, as dislexyc people do not use their brains in the usual mode, they have lateral thinking and can solve problems using their skewed perspective...
Let's come back to when Jack was 11 y.o.
We had planned a travel to Australia, we wanted to spend some days diving on the Great Barrier, so we needed him to be certified J-OW before the trip.
Of course at that time the in-water portion of the course was not a probem, my son had already done more than 100 dives in the sea, both from shore and from boat, and he was capable of dealing with his equipment autonomously, without any help.
Disconnecting or connecting the pressurised BCD hose? Not a problem!
But he had severe problems with the formalism of the theory and understanding the written questions.
Remember, at the time we did not know he is dislexyc!
The Padi instructor who was teaching his OW class did see the he had in reality understood everything about gas laws, lung expansion, equalisation, breathing control, buoyancy management, etc.
But he was never able to complete succesfully the questionnaire.
He decided to certify him despite this, jumping over the problem.
Then, a few months later, we went to Cairns. Jack was 12 at that time. During a LOB with 11 planned dives my son followed the Padi J-AOW course, which is just a platter of 5 dives: deep, navigation, night, etc.
No problem with them!
But there was also "advanced" theory, and this was again a problem.
The language barrier was an additional obstacle, as we are not native English speakers. And Australians do not really speak English, but some sort of "slang" which was really very hard for all of us.
The instructor on the LOB was very patient with my son. He immediately recognised that he was already a fully capable diver, but he had in some way to solve the problem of theoretical tests.
The solution was to perform an oral "in practice" examination. Which is out of standards, but did proof that my son had gained the proper knowledge, albeit it was not possible to ascertain this through traditional written questionnaires.
So I suggest that you talk with your instructor and see if he can accomodate something similar with your son.
As this episode was one of the first evident signals of the undetected dislexy, and as you seem to have the same problems as your son (dislexy is often hereditary), I also suggest that he (and also you) is tested for dislexy by your doctor.
He had his first air tank in the pool at 2.5 years, and started diving in the sea, in Sardinia, at 4.5 years.
Both I and my wife are Cmas instructors and my wife is one of the few instructors certified for children of ages 3 and up.
My son was literally born in water, he was already swimming at 12 months in the pool, while of course he was not walking yet.
So in water he never had problems.
But he always had problems at school and with formal theoretical instruction.
We discovered the origin of the problem only much later, when he was at high school: he is dislexyc, and this explains why he could not learn anything reading a book...
After discovering the origin of the problem, he did learn how using different strategies at school, and this caused him to become a super-brilliant student. He got a master degree in biotechnology without any delay and he is now doing his PhD in the best Italian research lab in Milan.
Dislexy is a pain at school, but is a big advantage at the university and in research-related work, as dislexyc people do not use their brains in the usual mode, they have lateral thinking and can solve problems using their skewed perspective...
Let's come back to when Jack was 11 y.o.
We had planned a travel to Australia, we wanted to spend some days diving on the Great Barrier, so we needed him to be certified J-OW before the trip.
Of course at that time the in-water portion of the course was not a probem, my son had already done more than 100 dives in the sea, both from shore and from boat, and he was capable of dealing with his equipment autonomously, without any help.
Disconnecting or connecting the pressurised BCD hose? Not a problem!
But he had severe problems with the formalism of the theory and understanding the written questions.
Remember, at the time we did not know he is dislexyc!
The Padi instructor who was teaching his OW class did see the he had in reality understood everything about gas laws, lung expansion, equalisation, breathing control, buoyancy management, etc.
But he was never able to complete succesfully the questionnaire.
He decided to certify him despite this, jumping over the problem.
Then, a few months later, we went to Cairns. Jack was 12 at that time. During a LOB with 11 planned dives my son followed the Padi J-AOW course, which is just a platter of 5 dives: deep, navigation, night, etc.
No problem with them!
But there was also "advanced" theory, and this was again a problem.
The language barrier was an additional obstacle, as we are not native English speakers. And Australians do not really speak English, but some sort of "slang" which was really very hard for all of us.
The instructor on the LOB was very patient with my son. He immediately recognised that he was already a fully capable diver, but he had in some way to solve the problem of theoretical tests.
The solution was to perform an oral "in practice" examination. Which is out of standards, but did proof that my son had gained the proper knowledge, albeit it was not possible to ascertain this through traditional written questionnaires.
So I suggest that you talk with your instructor and see if he can accomodate something similar with your son.
As this episode was one of the first evident signals of the undetected dislexy, and as you seem to have the same problems as your son (dislexy is often hereditary), I also suggest that he (and also you) is tested for dislexy by your doctor.
