If someone else has similar interests to his he gets very animated and engaged, but if there's no one around who's interested in what he's interested in, he's happy to be off by himself doing his own thing.
But regarding unusual and intense interests he doesn't exactly fit aspergers. He does intensely investigate and learn as much as he can about a topic, but the subjects change every month or so (although we do revisit astronomy related topics fairly frequently) and he doesn't generally talk about any of these topics excessively.
Mine rotates interests frequently-- I'm not sure if that's a gifted/AS trait or just the kid I have.
I'd say that the special interest aspect can also be expressed negatively: a child without AS can make himself be or seem interested in something in order to get along with others or please a teacher. But my kid with AS cannot feign interest in something he doesn't care about, no matter what the stakes are. We work on this.
It seems to me that the line separating these diagnoses gets very fuzzy in gifted kids. I do try to keep in mind the DSM criteria for actual diagnosis and I think based on DSM criteria, he qualifies for ADHD inattentive, but not Aspergers....but he definitely falls somewhere on the spectrum, and has high anxiety.
If you see an experienced neuropsych who deals extensively with bright kids, they should be able to tease this out for you. It's what they do.
More in a minute on your other post--
DeeDee
