unsure whether or not son has it...

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Well, even if he was diagnosed, what can you do about it? Nothing? Or is there something?

No, only education. There are social skills classes and such; but once an Aspie, always an Aspie. It's hard-wired into your brain, and whatever the alternative-medicine quacks tell you, there's no cure for autism (nor do most of us want one).

The thing is that it can be damaging not to know you have AS because you start blaming yourself for being 'mean' or 'stupid' or 'bratty'. I did exactly that; and it could've been prevented, and I could've started learning about myself earlier, if my mom had told me when she first suspected it, when I was 11.

I'm going to second Callista on that. It would have been nice to know that there was some neurological reason for my difficulties when I was younger rather than being lazy, bad, not trying hard enough, weird, any other self-esteem busting labels you can think of. It was very clear to me that I was different, but not so clear that I wasn't broken.

My dd is just starting the diagnostic process at 7. She is painfully aware that she is different. It would be nice to tell her why and how without having her think she's wrong or broken--just different. That's the aspect I'm working on now. Different is ok, you are ok. Once there is a diagnosis we most certainly will tell her what's up and what it means in a positive slant.

Having Asperger's doesn't mean there's anything wrong, there's just a constellation of traits both positive and negative to deal with. It makes him different from others, but not broken.

My son has a school use diagnosis (given by the school special ed team) that allows him to get accomodations from the school. That by itself is very useful, because my son has some related conditions that are impairing (sensory issues and loose joints - he cannot write). He also has the right to take tests without any time limit, although he has never exercised that. This will apply to future college entrance tests, etc., as well. Apparently some parents discover that little accomodation in high school and try to get their non-AS kids diagnosed as AS simply to get the time extension. Anyway, this accomodation is written in every IEP, and may be useful if your child has a processing speed issue. We also get services like occupational therapy and speech for pragmatic speech/social issues, but not all districts offer these to AS.

For my son, knowing "why" he was different was important. At the time we asked for assessment my son was well aware that he was different, and was getting very frustrated at school. We had never considered AS, we just knew there was a gap between perceived intelligence and ability to perform in school. My son saw and felt that gap, and it was driving into his self-esteem. The diagnosis answered all his questions, and clarified for him that he was indeed very bright, that he was full of gifts, but that the cost to being given those gifts were certain burdens. He was able to understand that now we all knew about the burdens we could help him out with them. It freed him from all his worries about who he was and could be. I know that sounds odd, but this was a child that needed to know. Some do, some don't. Mind did.