Study Shows Children With Autism Tend to Stray

[SheilaT]

5. My older son, who has Asperger's, didn't stray.

But he didn't fit what I was reading about childhood development that said very young children stayed close to mom when out somewhere. We'd go to parks, and he'd happily get far from me. He didn't need to check in with me, as the books said a kid that age should.

We didn't figure out that he had Asperger's until he was 18 and halfway through he senior year of high school. I honestly think that we benefitted enormously from his not being diagnosed for so long, because we didn't pathologize him. Yes, there have been various issues, but for the most part we were able to keep him normalized, even though he clearly needed extra help.

For what it's worth, the younger son, definitely not on the autism spectrum, who strayed. He'd go missing in department stores. One time he took off for a midnight party with other young friends (he was six when this happened) and the father of the friends had to return him to us.

So straying is not exclusively something autistic children do, although for those children it may certainly present special problems.