SilentC
I agree entirely with you and would just like to add that one reason in favour of staying close to the accepted or traditional (I don't say 'correct' because they are all just accidents) spellings, grammar and syntax is that it makes it easier for readers to understand what the writer is trying to say. The further a writer strays from those accepted norms, the harder it is to understand what they are saying.
I agree that language develops (indeed my previous sentence shows one relatively recent development - the use of "they" (third person plural) as a non-gendered version of the third person singular instead of saying he/she/it). However, it usually develops by incremental alterations of the existing norms, not by wholesale abandonment of any attempt to know what the norms are or to observe them.
Sebastiaan - I am very sympathetic with your son's plight. His situation actually re-inforces my point - the ability to communicate in a way that the recipient can understand is essential to make use of an individual's intellect. Faraday (the scientist) said that a piece of research is not completed until it has been written up in clear and concise English in such a way that an educated reader could replicate the research form themselves. We all rely on communication, written and oral, to achieve. How is he with reading? If he has advanced verbal skills when communicating orally and his problem does not affect reading, and his problem is writing and adhering to the spelling conventions, why not try dictation software (eg Dragon Naturally Speaking). I use it at work for my own typing instead of the keyboard and it has improved dramatically over the past 5 years. Also learning to correct the output might be a skill that he can learn which could help his own writing.
