Took our 5 year to Seattle Children's for an autism evaluation yesterday

[Kennah]

An APRN and a front desk staffer met with us for about 2 hours. We have a survey to fill out and return, and one for his teacher.

School is out, but he's getting ESY this summer, and I know the teacher will jump right on it. She's awesome!

Wife seems stuck in dread over his future worrying who will take care of him. I tend to operate at the other end of the spectrum and see a highly functional, intelligent, if crafty and mischievous, little creature who stands an excellent chance of becoming something really great in life.

He has a hacker mindset, and I expect he's going to be cracking passwords on the computer within a couple of years. He's also becoming an avid cyclist. I've taken him out on 6+ mile rides, and I suspect that's going to increase over time.

[SheilaT]

1. Are you thinking Asperger's?

I have a 31 year old Aspie. He lives on his own right now.

My personal advice is to recognize that he will achieve certain kinds of social milestones well behind his age mates, but he will reach many of him. Do NOT continue to do everything for him in those spheres as he reaches adulthood. Create what amounts to an appropriate kind of assisted living while he learns to do things on his own, like work, pay his rent and bills. It takes a lot more oversight for many more years than most kids, but eventually it should be just fine.

Especially is he's really smart.

[Kennah]

2. From what I've read, I'm thinking Autism

He's not very verbal, but he can be encouraged to communicate. He is however mostly very social, and that tends to be un-Asperger. Whatever the determination, we're going to be there for him.

He can be very assertive and independent to the point of being stubborn and impulsive. He tends to wander, and has an odd sense of boundaries. We recently moved. Place we lived before was right on a busy street, and because people stayed on the sidewalks he would stay on the sidewalks. Place we live now is a development off busy streets with a number of kids who wander freely. As such, he wanders freely, even going into people's open garages. We have to keep an eye on him or he disappears from sight quickly.

When we go biking, he's learned some patterns. Stays on the sidewalk when we're riding along a busy road, stops at the intersections (mostly to push the walk button), and mostly stays to the right on the bike trail. Didn't understand the words "Keep right", but I can motion with my hand showing a straight line, and he'll pull in front of me on the right. He has an odd interpretation of hand signals. He understands when I hand signal for turns, but he gives a hand signal that could best be described as a finger swipe on an imaginary iPad affixed to his handlebars. More of his technological mind.

[SheilaT]

3. Thanks for explaining.

It sounds like you're learning to read him and work with his own way of interacting with the world. It's going to be a long journey.

My son is old enough that he wasn't diagnosed with the Asperger's until he was 18 and halfway through his senior year of high school. All I knew was that he was fundamentally different from other kids. He was obviously very bright, appropriately verbal, and not at all social. I had to work with him and coach him about ordinary things that I knew other moms didn't have to with their kids.

I'm certainly no expert, and your son is quite different from mine, but I'm guessing he can learn a great deal over time, and perhaps will be able to be independent eventually. If that turns out to be not totally realistic, however you can get him to interact in the world, you'll be helping him enormously.

[LuckyLib]

4. Read the Pawader article in today's NYTimes Magazine.

It's quoted and referenced in the post above this one in the forum.

[Marrah_G]

5. I am so glad you had the testing done.

Tell your wife that if he is diagnosed it will open up lots of support programs for him and for you both. And you could both be right- he could do amazing things in life and still need someone around to coach him through the everyday things like bills, shopping, housing, etc.

My 20 year old was just diagnosed and I sighed a HUGE sigh of relief knowing that now he would have access to all sorts of help, even if I wasn't there.