First, thanks so much to everyone who has commented and given advice. I'm much saner now because of it than when the school year started
Today we had the first step towards getting difficult child some help, and that was the ARD meeting with the speech therapist, as well as the vice principal, his teacher, another lady (I wasn't sure who she was), and the school psychologist.
Overall if was a very positive meeting. It didn't accomplish a LOT, because this was pretty much just setting up a behavior plan for the school. He has been evaluated by the psychologist and she said she noticed three major issues that is he having: physical aggression, verbal aggression, and non-compliance. She said that she did note that he may have some sensory issues, as well as social problems (that actually suprised me!). And the teacher and VP also said that they had noticed him pulling and chewing on his shirt as well.
The behavior plan we are going to use is pretty much setting up rewards (or stickers or a points system), so that he can be rewarded or praised every time he does something that is good. Every time he shares nicely, every time he walks in the hall correctly, etc. Currently we are just doing an "end of the day" sort of thing, where the only feedback given is something like "Today difficult child hit another student". Basically the bad behaviors don't negate the good behaviors now, if that makes sense. The way my husband put it was "So we treat good behavior just like bad behavior", meaning that we recognize it immediatly and reward it by itself (like we would reprimand bad behavior immediatly). The teacher will be adding another page that she sends home everyday, with maybe stars or points to use to earn rewards, for example if he shares with his friends, he gets a star. If he walks correctly in the hallway, a star. And then he would have a reward after he earns so many stars or stickers or points or whatever. This is an 8 week plan that we will re-evaluate at a later date.
I guess I thought that maybe they would say something like "maybe you ought to get him tested for (insert something here)", or "we saw some behaviors consistent with one who has (such and such)", but my mom tells me that unless I ask that outright, they can't say anything like that. Not that it really matters, because the only thing we could do is have him seen by a medical professional, which we are working on doing anyway.
Like I mentioned in another post, we've set up appointments later on this month and next month for play therapy. After that is over, hopefully they will recommend he be evaluated by someone else. If not, then it is on the the child study center.
I think the major benefit of what will come today is that it will be easier on difficult child and on us as a family. It is hard to have to constantly give negative feedback, but we never had anything to reward him for since all we heard about was the negative. Hopefully it will also give him some confidence, and lessen his anxiety about school as well. Just this morning he told me "I never have good days", and sounded so defeated, so I'm happy that I will have a reason now to give him some positive reinforcement.
Next step: play therapy.