another asd dx in family, diffs between classic/AS siblings

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my oldest has been undergoing evaluation at his school. i asked for a general eval, we know he has some issues but nothing was clear or obvious. he attends a gifted school and constantly has problems with homework and assignments, causing him to get failing grades in some classes. he is very unorganized, sensory issues with sound and texture, overly moralistic, problems following verbal directions, controlling about his environment and those in it, resistant to change, inflexible, low frustration threshold, extremely empathetic, socially awkward, rocks, severe speech articulation impairment when young, last year was shutting down in class.

IEP mtg yesterday surprised me, his school gave him an educational dx of asd. they had me and one of his teachers do the GADS among several other tests, was borderline on mine, and probable on the teachers.

im just not sure, he has confused us for so long. my youngest is one of those slap-you-in-the-face textbook examples of autistic traits. he is exactly like his father, who isnt dx yet but is definitely classically autistic as well. my oldest shares some similar traits with my youngest, much more subtle and with little differences. i can see the traits in each of them, but it almost looks like a different beast in each one, and in my youngest is SO easy to recognize. but the most perplexing part is that they have different fathers. so with my youngest, i can see exactly where it came from, but with my oldest....

i'd love to get some input from anyone who has both AS and classic kids in their family. what are the differences you see? are they that different? do they share a lot of identical traits?

does anyone out there have one that is so obvious, and one that you just didnt see because it looked so different?

I have a sibling with classic autism and I have Asperger's. The only real difference is that they had delays and I didn't. As in, language delays and such-- I was only delayed in self-help skills. They developed normally and then lost skills and the few words they learned. They seem to have more trouble with the mechanisms of language than I -- pronoun reversal, understand past tense, etc while I have more problems with just actually speaking. My sibling will talk like an aspie for ages.

I have more sensory issues than they do. They can play the same video clip for hours on end, which is something I could never do. They give off a sense of general unawareness while I am a very anxious person.

I think the differences are very subtle and these differences I list could have nothing to do with a distinction but rather that we are different people. Autism is something that is difficult to define in the first place. I think most people have a sense of who is "worse off" than others, even if functioning labels are meaningless, but exactly why so-and-so is is hard to put in words. Maybe it's all imaginary.

I only have the one diagnosed, but I still go back and forth about the other. Still, I'm more likely to say she has a few AS genes than IS AS, and I think her biggest issues are in temperament - she seems to have gotten all the family moodiness, and my son all the exacting logic.

One thing I am sure of and that is that folks with AS are just as unique as folks without it, so having one child be obvious and the other less so doesn't rule out the other also being AS. I think the school has every incentive NOT to label your child AS, so if they are willing to do it, then he most likely IS AS. Sounds like it to me, actually.

The test is fairly simple, going back to the ability to read social cues: does your son understand social cues in the way most kids his age do? Or does he not? My daughter, I THINK, does, but being the only 10 year old girl I've ever raised, I can't be sure. She is most certainly aware of things my son is oblivious to. My son - he's learned to read a few social cues, but he still really struggles. And when I listen in on his car conversations, his efforts to be socially polite are so basic, totally perfunctory and abbreviated (still huge improvement, however! "Thank you for sharing that but I am going to talk about X" lol!)

You and I perhaps are both more AS than we realize, even if we not actually AS, so our kids can well have gotten some of the genes from us.

Here are some differences I have noticed with the children in my family. They are definitely on opposite sides of the spectrum.

(These are individual observations and will not be the same for other children)

Classic child (boy):

Hyposensitive
Rocks, bounces, cartwheels, spinning
Lots of trouble with self-help skills
Delayed speech
Very artistic/amazing at drawing
Trouble with tone of voice and non-verbal aspects of language
Very empathetic (over-emotional)
Temper tantrums
Lines things up
Noted by teacher to be “in his own world”
Very disorganized
Ignores people (not reciprocal)
Very affectionate/cuddly
Picky eater
Great sense of humor/sarcastic
Laid back
Quiet
Low eye contact as baby
Attention issues
Hard time processing information
Low muscle tone

AS child (also boy)
Inflexible
Needs routine/can’t deal with change
Argumentative
Obsessive
Very talkative
Verbose and articulate
Makes noises
Odd posture
Hypersensitive
Likes confined spaces
Meltdowns
Loud
Precocious
Likes adults more than peers
Socially awkward
Early talker
Eye contact not so bad/ but will not show interest /gaze with others, or delayed in showing interest
Very creative and imaginative
Picky eater
Talks to himself all day
logical
very observant

Both:
Like patterns
Both stim in different ways
Both have trouble socializing with peers
Both need their down time/ alone time
Both shut down and overreact/meltdown
Both can be physically aggressive with other children
Both need lots of sleep
Both are picky eaters
Both get overstimulated (very different reactions though)
Both get attached to objects

Those are just some of the major differences and similarities I thought of.

I also have seen MANY different variations in symptoms between my ASD/AS students. It is easy to get an idea of what these conditions look like in your mind, and end up not seeing it in a child that is presenting differently.