Looking for opinion on my son before diagnosis (Aspergers?)

Post Reply New Topic

I think that you should do whatever will put your mind at ease.

I think he may have meant that his son turned 4 in April.....I could be wrong though. My name is April and I always say that they should have named my brother that because he was the one born in April .

People keep throwing around this word "fine" without clarifying it at all. I think the child sounds fine too, meaning that I think he sounds like a bright kid with caring parents, and that he has every chance in the world of succeeding. I bristle however at the idea of using "fine" to mean "not on the autism spectrum." Some autistic people have more obvious gifts than deficits, and may have compensatory mechanisms to make up for the things they miss. Does being higher functioning make one less autistic?

A psychologist who writes off a diagnosis based solely on eye contact should have their license revoked. First of all, eye contact is subjective - what is "not enough" to one person is "normal" to another. Second of all, some children develop their own ways of looking at a face that mimics eye contact. Thirdly, many aspie kids don't show signs of eye contact problems until they are much older- if at all.

I think there are enough issues to warrant further assessment. I also think that because he is so young, you may want to prepare yourself for not having a final diagnosis for several more years, since aspie traits often don't become prevalent until Grade 1 or 2.

Many people on the autism spectrum are fine, absolutely. That's why I put in the second sentence as well as the first.


No. However, a higher functioning child is a less scary concept to typical neurotypical parents unfamiliar with autism. I think it's very unlikely that the child of the original poster has low functioning autism, given the verbal development, so I didn't see the need to get into a discussion of it in this thread.

Caitlin, can you talk about the eye contact more?

Also, in my case, it's probably not the eye contact solely. I'm annoyingly NT in terms of being a hyper-empath and an obsessive bleeding heart.

My son is diagnosed AS and has never had obvious trouble with eye contact. Eye contact isn't conclusive; it is only one of many factors.

Eye contact is not a diagnostic criteria in and of itself - it will not (ie. should not) be a deal breaker for an AS diagnosis. My son never had any remarkable issues with eye contact, and still has what many people would consider normal amounts of eye contact. Many other aspie kids likewise never had such poor eyecontact that it was ever noticed pre-diagnosis.

Also... being hyper empathetic or a 'bleeding heart' to an extreme is not generally an NT trait per se. There are plenty of NTs who are pretty stone cold. My son, and many other aspies that I've read about, have exactly what you just described. An intense sense of personal pain or sadness for others who are hurting, a complete intolerance for people or animals being harmed, etc. People on the spectrum have feelings, sometimes incredibly intense ones.

The concept of 'empathy' is hugely misunderstood. Aspies lack empathy insofar as they may struggle with what is referred to as the 'theory of mind' - the innate awareness that other people have their own minds and want to do their own things, feel their own feelings, moment by moment. Aspies also can struggle with the response to feelings of empathy - they feel badly for someone but don't know intuitively how to react to show empathy. But aspies do not necessarily lack 'empathy' in the sense of feeling bad when someone is hurt or sad.

My son will reach near-meltdown if I don't get to the tv remote fast enough to switch the channel when one of those Feed the Children - type commercials comes on - he cannot BEAR to watch/hear it. A few weeks ago he was swinging in our backyard and I didn't realize he'd gotten on the swing so I didn't make a point of watching my 1 year old closely enough, and my 1 year old walked behind him while he was swinging (very high) and got completely wiped out by the swing and quite badly hurt. Simon was devastated by the knowledge that he had hurt Seth, even though it was an accident. He was beside himself with regret and apologies and tears. He DEFINITELY feels empathy.

Autism is extremely complex. Generally, it is not one limited type of behaviour that determines a diagnosis, but rather a combination of different behaviours all occuring together.

I don't know whether you are NT or AS, but I do know that neither your eye contact nor your empathetic feelings for others will determine a diagnosis.

Would the father post here is he wasn't concerned there could be something there? You don't have the information to be so absolutely certain the child is not AS, just as no one else here has enough information to conclude the child is. This is a situation in which we can offer tentative opinions and not much more; there is no need for you to work so hard to sell your view.

To the OP:

I don't think my son could have been diagnosed as AS when he was 4, and that is true for many kids on the high end of the spectrum. There was a sense among many people at that age that something might be going on, but no one saw enough to say what it might be, or that it really was there, and we had several professionals make observations. It wasn't until my son was 7 that the differences between him and the other children were apparent enough for someone to feel comfortable giving him a diagnosis. By then, we needed a diagnosis because we needed my son to qualify for an IEP, as this obviously bright child was not performing anywhere near perceived potential in school. Before that, all he really needed was for the people around him to accept him as he was, and not make unexpected changes in what was going on. If the preschool had been more proactive in redirecting the kids, keeping a keener eye on the playground, and had not tried to insist he be quiet on a mat for two hours for nap time (when he didn't need to nap), he would have been fine. If your child is having issues with the nursery school, I would look first at the school, and if it really is appropriate for your child. Look second at your child. I am glad that we didn't get a diagnosis when my son was 4 for the simple reason that very young children should be able to expect the world to shape to their needs, more than the other way around, and as long as the world is doing that, labels have no meaning. Once you get into elementary school everything changes, and a diagnosis, if it applies, may be needed. But right now ... see if you can bend the world.

Ah. I totally misconstrued what you were implying. It seems that we are in agreement: autistic or not it sounds like the kid sounds bright and curious, and those are some great traits to have.

Four year olds can be very hard to get a handle on - there's a wide range of what constitutes "typical," and therefore, it's hard to judge whether there's something atypical going on. For parents, it's even harder when it's a first/only child.

In general, kids tend to behave more typically at home than they do outside - they know the people better, and they know the routines better. Quirky behavior is often seen by us, their parents, as endearing. Teachers and strangers might assess that same behavior as odd. We also understand what is going on with our children almost by instinct, so when something happens at school, that would never happen at home, it is not always because the teacher is nasty (although sometimes it is ) - sometimes it is because we know our children so well that, without even knowing we are doing it, we "run interference." We make sure no one is sitting in our child's seat. We make sure nothing is touching if it shouldn't be. We never run out of the item that we must have for lunch, etc. School isn't going to be like that, and the teachers aren't going to understand that the things we avoid so instinctively are like landmines. We don't run into them, so we never see them. That might be contributing to what is going on at school.

The eye contact issue is a tricky thing. We've watched eye contact and found that it varies depending on such things as who initiated the interaction; what the conversation was about; how tired/stressed/happy the child was; with whom the child was speaking; how long the conversation lasted; whether eye contact was being requested/demanded (which actually lessened the eye contact) ... It's definitely not a consistent thing. So if a doctor had an interaction with a child who had walked over to him/her with a toy and spoken to the doctor about a preferred topic, it would be expected that eye contact would be fairly good. That would not be a time to assess the child's overall eye contact. But as someone else pointed out, eye contact alone is not a way of ruling out an ASD diagnosis, especially in a child of this age. At age 4, my son's eye contact was, at times, very typical. In fact, he was, in most respects, very typical and would not have been diagnosable. Now, since he's a teenager, most people who know anything about the spectrum would be hard pressed to miss his social awkwardness, his limited eye contact, and his difficulty engaging in non-preferred activities.

As DW has pointed out, many children are not diagnosed until they are into elementary school. Whether or not a diagnosis is made, it doesn't change who your child is. He's the same child with or without the "label," and the only differences, if he is diagnosed, are that the schools will have a bit more information about how to work with him most effectively, and you'll have someplace to begin to get guidance in working with your son and support from the school.

On rereading, I think you're right. Oops, sorry about that.

I've also taken the Baron-Cohen tests, so, NT here.

Thank you for the education about eye contact. What I'm hearing is that eye contact in children is not diagnostic, although it might be in (some) adults.

To whomever said AS's are empathetic: they are, but almost, only when they want to be?

The issue with AS and empathy is that individuals with AS don't always understand how other individuals are feeling - they often have deficits in theory of mind, which can interfere with their ability to put themselves in someone else's position. Once they have, however, gotten past that, and figured out how another person feels, they are just as empathetic as anyone else. One other issue, however, is that sometimes, individuals with AS express their empathy in ways that might look different from how NT's might express it, and it might therefore not be recognized by NT's as an empathetic response.

I think most aspies are just as empathetic, if not more so, than most neurotypicals. They just don't tend to show it in the form of sympathy. I think the reason for this is that sympathy doesn't make any rational sense: sympathy doesn't help fix the problem, so it seems pointless to offer it. Aspies are more likely to offer advice that they think may help, if they have any, as that seems like a more practical solution. Of course, to neurotypicals that advice often comes across as criticism, thus leading to the myth that aspies "lack empathy".

People deeper into the autism spectrum are more likely not to say anything at all, so the same myth gets applied to them as well.

I think the "theory of mind" thing suffers from the same fault. The factual observation is that aspies are less likely to make predictions about what other people will do based on understanding what they're thinking. That doesn't mean that they don't understand anything about what those others are thinking; it just means they are less willing to risk making incorrect predictions.

Excellent points psychohist.

I think the other problem poppyx, is that most of the statements you're making are along the lines of "Aspies are always ___________, therefore ____________" or "Aspies are never ____________ , therefore ____________".

As I mentioned before, Autism is very complex, and cannot be delineated in such a black and white way. Indeed, this is precisely why it is considered a spectrum. Nothing about it is black and white. Your assumptions may be due to miseducation you've received from the psychologist you saw, I'm not sure, but I think you'll find that the only words that work in those statements are "Aspies are always individuals, therefore we should not make assumptions about them".

Also, my son can recognize facial expressions. Many aspies can. Many aspies cannot. Welcome to the spectrum

One final note.... if I lived my life by the mantra "always trust the experts" I shudder to think where I would be