Hi!
Ok so a bit of background on my son, who is 11 - might be a bit long sorry!

When he was a baby/toddler and learning to talk, when he would have developmental leaps, he would develop a temporary slight stammer. It was only noticeable to me and his dad, who now can't even remember it happening, it was so slight and not problematic. This disappeared when he mastered talking, and only returned when he was 7/8. This was in lockdown, which he hated and really struggled with emotionally - he kind of just went into himself sometimes and would physically put himself in a ball shape. He hated doing school work at home, and during this time he developed a very noticeable stammer. When he (very happily) went back to school, it didn't go away and he said he wanted some help with it. So we got him speech therapy and that helped his confidence massively. At the moment his stammer goes up and down in severity but doesn't generally bother him, so not really an issue. When discussing his stammer with his teacher, she mentioned that his thinking is quite disordered and that maybe his brain was working too fast and chaotically for his mouth to follow, which is probably part of what was happening. Anyway, didn't really think too much of that comment at the time.
At around 8, the school flag up that his spelling isn't great and he gets extra help. His reading has always been amazing - he started reading the Harry Potter books by himself at age 8, and soon moved on to Percy Jackson books - he soon got through all 30 something of them! But his spelling was something he had always struggled with. His handwriting is also fairly dreadful. At a similar time, it was also flagged up that although his maths was good, he was struggling with his times tables.

Fast forward to when he's 10. No real improvement with spelling or times tables, despite him being otherwise academically very good. I start wondering in more detail about him and mentally note the following things. Stammer (sometimes with tic), can't remember times tables, also can't remember days of the week or months of the year, struggles with short term memory to a degree, can't organise himself, his teachers have mentioned disordered thinking and also trouble focusing. So I start to think about dyslexia and ADD - not ADHD as he is not hyperactive at all and has no challenging behaviour at all. I talk to his teacher who agrees and to be honest seems a bit relieved that I've suggested it so he didn't have to! We are in the (slow) process of getting some sort of in-school plan for him. He isn't severe enough to warrant a local authority plan, what with the waiting lists being years long. Which is fine :)

But my question is - it is common for neurodivergence/learning difficulties to be spotted this late? I always hear of most of them becoming quite obvious by pre-school age. With my son it just wasn't! Absolutely no criticism of the school here - I guess just the nature of his difficulties, and his natural personality of being very laid back, meant that it just wasn't obvious straight away. He had to get to an age when his abilities in things like spelling and times tables etc dropped behind the rest of his class, and also behind the rest of his academic abilities. Plus I also wonder what effect lockdown had on him, maybe it triggered something - I remember his speech therapist saying that during and after lockdown lots of kids (more than expected), were referred for stammering.

Anyway, just wondering if this is common (for it to be noticed later in childhood), and if anyone is in the same boat!
Thanks!!