Can I consider my son to be an "Aspie"?

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My 4 and 10 month old son just got diagnosed with autism last week. Now, I don't know if they're going to give him a level yet, but if they're going to decide that from the evaluation, I wouldn't be surprised if they said he's low-functioning. I know, functioning labels can be a sensitive topic so i apologize in advance... But I'd like to get some feedback from you all.

Yes, the parent interview probably had a lot to do with her decision to diagnose, but he COMPLETELY BOMBED the ados testing. He totally shut down and was refusing to do anything the clinician was asking of him. He was saying things like: "I wanna go home", "I don't wanna play with you." "I don't like these toys." It was pretty tough to watch. He was clearly not liking the situation. He's like this at the doctor's too as well as the dentist or any other medical or clinical setting.

I guess my question is what makes an almost 5 year old high-functioning? Forgive me, I'll admit that I'm hung up on this whole functioning level/label thing. He has trouble with flowing conversations. Like if you ask him "How was school today?", he might say "Did you know the sperm Whale is the largest toothed predator on planet Earth?" He can have back and forth exchanges if the topic is interesting to him and he can say just about anything that's on his mind. His sentences are getting longer (up to 12 words) where he's essentially putting two sentences together now using the word 'and'. By the time he was 2 1/2 he was putting 2 words together like :"Go away", "Put me Down", "scary monster", "It's my cake". By his 3rd birthday he was saying 3 to 4 word sentences daily like "We need more gummy bears" "What do you have?" "What's inside there?" and "Open the door!". He can dress/undress, go to the bathroom and put on/take off his shoes. He can draw simple stick figures, but still can't write his name (My older NT son couldn't either at that age). He asks Why questions all day long and understands how to answer them, has really good eye contact/joint attention and pretend plays all the time and is generally a happy, laughing, having a good time kind of kid - although lately, he's becoming a little more whiny and defiant.

Last edited by DT154 on 14 Aug 2018, 6:51 pm, edited 6 times in total.

That sounds pretty high functioning to me anyway. Very high in fact you can feel good that hes already achieved so much at this age.

Thanks.

from someone who is not even 5 years old sounds like he is high functioning. What are the symptoms that you are observing that cause you to believe he is not an NT?

I like him already, on the basis of that, he sounds great!

For what if is worth it is not possible for the assessors to get a "complete" picture. We got our diagnosis in the U.K. and we were not given a functioning level. They just said despite the "aspergers" diagnosis having been replaced by "autism" she is an aspie. That would be the best way to describe her presentation. They also said she was not particularly social. Well, she wasn't particularly social with them on that day. She is actually really social and has lots of friends and is well loved by her peers. They only get a snap shot after all and ASC is fairly dynamic.

He sounds like a great little boy with clearly defined interests. He'd definetly get on with my(most likely NT) 4 year old....she has spent the whole day asking me about the exact order of events when our sun will die. I didn't knew parenting required this level of physics knowledge.

We knew by age 5 that our daughter was different than what we expected to be normal. We took her in for evaluation and at that time, it was incredibly difficult to test at that age, this was 13 years ago. The psychologist we took her too said he could do some tests, but they'd be inconclusive.

We decided to wait a bit. We didn't think she had ADD (that was the big label at the time). It honestly wasn't until her 2nd grade teacher that we learned about Asperger's. That teacher recognized the behavior for what it was. At that time, we took her for a neuro-psych eval and the diagnosis was pretty clear on Asperger's.

It sounds like all are in agreement that your son might be somewhere on the spectrum or with other issue, but it also sounds like there might need to be a bit more time, or seeing a different counselor. I know I had to cope with the fact that if I took my aspie to anyone she perceived as old, it would not be a productive meeting. Old people made her very uncomfortable... so I had to shop around for awhile to find someone she'd be comfortable with.

Hi Thanks.

Yes. This lady was an old drill sergeant. She was literally backing him into a corner; made the poor kid just burst out crying.