Is it normal to be more attracted to the friendship of...

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^This. I've always gotten on better with adults for that reason.

Can also be they are drawn to adults in general because adults are less judgemental. I know that when I got on well with a group of peers, that was a rare event, not the norm. I did better with much older kids or with adults because I didn't have to impress them by showing my cool-culture credentials like I did with kids my own age.

It's not the norm, but I think it's generally OK. My chemistry teacher was the only person I wanted to remain in contact with after leaving school. I even visited the school twice just to converse with him, which is highly unusual behaviour on my part. (I was very anxious doing so and he left the country soon anyway.)

He took a keen interest in me while I attended the school and I remember being impressed by his intellect and teaching (so were most students, apparently, because such a large number took chemistry they eventually had to divide the class in two). I was only interested in him in an innocent way. The other students would refer to me as his pet because I received more attention. Interacting with the students did not interest me, but interacting with him did; he interacted on an intellectual level combined with much humour and idiosyncrasy.

What I meant is it seems people with AS don't have as much difficulty as people with NVLD. But I don't know I am just trying to learn. What I am starting to think is my stepson doesn't only have NVLD, I think he also has HFA. It doesn't sound like people with AS have so many academic difficulties. I was helping my stepson with homework last night, it's very hard for him, even writing is hard for him. He can read but never gets the main point. I read people talking about their school or their college or the summer job they had here and it's just so hard for my stepson. College, getting and holding a job, all those things are worries for my husband and I. He couldn't walk one block from this house, he would have too much anxiety.

And I said my son gravitates towards his teachers because they are less likely to judge him which I think is the same thing as being more tolerant which is what you said.

All 3 of our kids went to zoo camp last summer. My 8 yr old son and 6 yr old daughter would talk about the friends they made and my 13 yr old would talk about his counselor. He knew lots about the counselor but nothing of the other kids. Then he gets upset because he doesn't have friends. As a parent you just want to help. My husband said he has had teachers tell him he can't come up and talk to them all the time, he needs to join the group, some have been quite firm about this.

Yeah, I would never hang out with a teacher outside of school (unless it was at a school or club sponsored event) and there are some adults around me that I occasionally hang out with. Being a teenager in an predominantly older-folks choir constibutes to this, as well as the fact that I have a music teacher whom I take lessons from, so I've hung around her some outside of lessons (one-on-one lessons, anyway).

A lot of people around me seem to see me as an adult, or at least a fairly mature teenager. They always say, "You don't act like a high schooler."

It is very different depending on the autistic person in question. There are children with classical autism/HFA that are doing better socially and better in independence than a child of the same age with AS. And it is as likely the other way round.

If you then throw PDD-NOS or NVLD into it, the categories most likely cannot be arranged according to severity anymore. All labels then seem to overlap, NVLD can be worse than AS in one person and better in AS in another person.

It's also different depending how professionals where you live diagnose different forms of autism. What you described (the academic difficulties and the concerns about his future independence) about your stepson is pretty typical for high-functioning children with AS where I live.

Elsewhere, professionals will think that this is more typical for someone with HFA or with NVLD and less typical for a child or adult with AS.

It's a really confusing topic.

How does on get diagnosed with AS or HFA. I mean my stepson had a psycho-educational evaluation, required by the school, and it sounded like a standardized test was given and they saw the gap in the PIQ and the VIQ and also saw a math disability.

So how can they test for social skills? one-sided conversations, obsessions about object, prosody of speech, standing too close?