My XP (and baby's dad) has a 7 1/2 year old son who has been diagnosed with ASD. He also has absence seizure epilepsy and has been diagnosed in the past with ADHD (although this diagnosis is being reviewed since his ASD determination).

Mr7.5 also has a brilliant vocab but is only able to hold conversations (or detailed conversations) on topics that are of interest to him. He often repeats nonsence phrases, especially at inappropriate times. He has difficulty following verbal direction. He enjoys other children and would like to play with them but does not interpret body language or social situations acurately and therefor is a loner. He has no hand-eye co-ordination. He has poor writing/drawing skilss (all shapes look like cirlces). behaviourly we have many issues, a lot of which I can attribute to poor parenting (unfortunately from both sides!... much easier to give in to tantrums apparently than try to correct a problem or enforce a rule :-s ). Mr7.5 can not use cutlery to feed himself, he can not wipe his own bottome after the toilet, his response to any situation he does not understand or feels like he is not getting his own way is physically violent and verbally colourful.... the list goes on and on... However as stated a lot of his problems are made worse by 2 parents who are not able to accept his conditions or adjust their lives to accomodate and help him.

He was kept back in kindergarten and only began Prep this year. He will be having an intergration aid next year. This year he has attenended a few differnt therapy pograms. Of them the occupational therapy and the speech pathology have been the most beneficial. Speech Pathology is not like speech therapy as it also deals with memory recall, and interpretation of how language is used.

I don't mean to scare you or anything as poor mr7.5 has a mother who would rather be at the pub with her friends or in the laundry "smoking the big pipe" (as per mr7.5) and is happy that her son has problems because she gets more money from the government (a quote from her). His father is stil in denial that his son has a problem and is really only just starting to accept it... dad thinks that mr7.5 is just lazy. Both parents give in to the tantrums and violent outburst. You do not sound like either of these parents and in all probability your beautiful child is going to have every advantage available has you are dealing with his problems now.

For some possitive feed back. My 20yr sister has high functioning autism which is centred around a language and memory problem. Socially you would not know and just (if anything) think she was a bit imature. She manages to work part time and communte to work independantly on public transport. She does have some literacy problems. She can converse with anyone on a very wide range of topics. She does have some obsessive tendencies but is a beautiful, well balanced person who has a place in society that is hers. She manages her own money. she is aware that she can not have a drivers licence as there are too many things to concentrate on and she gets too confused (this is a decission she came to her self). With all her problems regarding literacy, etc I will state that if I had to leave my week old child in someone elses unsupervised care for any period of time she would probably be the first person I would ask. She attended main stream primary school but a specialist secondary school. The biggest asset to her development was that my parents and extended family always treated her the same way as every other member was treated... she was never special or treated as such, she was just herself. Therapy wise the most beneficial thing for her was speech pathology.