too young to diagnose?

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thanks everyone, that was all very interesting. everybody had such different views. i guess it's important for me because

a) i am a single mother and am quite literally sick to death and very annoyed of strangers telling me i'm a bad mother when my son's freaking out!

b) i know i'm not crazy and that my son has definitely got his own thing going on, i've known it since he was very small.

c) i feel it's really important my son has his needs met as soon as he is in the school system, a lot of kids are fobbed off as they get older. also i felt misunderstood as a kid at school and it was awful i don't want my son to go through the same stuff or worse.

so i guess we'll see how things go from here!

I think for some Aspies the structure and consistency of the military is perfect, but for other Aspies it would be absolute hell on earth. I'm of the latter category. I'd have been courtmarshalled within a week.

For whatever it's worth, I did not notice that my son was any different until around age 3. I have a huge variety in children and my definition of "normal" isn't the same as everyone else's. I tend to accept people without thinking about whether their behavior is normal. (unless it's blantantly, obviously offensive or inappropriate) My family members realized that there was something different but I thought that they were too "narrow". My freewheeling attitude enabled me to raise my kid with confidence and free from inhibitions. I tailored his education around his needs, strengths, and weaknesses. I used a curiculum designed by a therapist for stroke victims who had to relearn how to speak, read and write. I used a game-based curiculum for 2nd-3rd grade since all that he would do during these years is play games! We had formal "tea time" at home and would often invited a friend or neighbor over to learn how to make conversation. Now he's in school and doing well. He is weak in comprehension and writing. I don't really think that it's comprehension, though. I think he has a hard time retelling, or coming up with the words to describe something. He has trouble with this in everyday conversation. I know it is different for everyone.
I guess, then that I did know he was different because I structured his life differently, but I did not think that he was "so different" as to need special school or medication etc. Actually, I guess he did have special school. Maybe what I meant to say is that his being different did not alarm me but I accepted it and dealt with it in the way that I thought best and I did not see the need for a formal diagnosis right away. Everyone's situation is unique, though.