My ds7 was diagnosed with Asperger's earlier this year. We had suspected that he might have it due to some behaviors that developed rather suddenly and worsened as he neared the age of five. However, these also seemed to match a PG child (and he is one).
It is typical that a child's AS behaviors seem to deviate from the norm in a more pronounced way as they get closer to school age. Before that, the parents are compensating more for the child's quirks, and the child is at home more.
I came away frustrated and not convinced that we had an accurate diagnosis. I felt this way mainly because the 'symptoms' that were used as a diagnosis seemed to me to be taken out of context and not truly representative of our son. I felt that if more time had been spent with him, or if he had been seen interacting with us or other children, a truer picture would have emerged.
It isn't usual for the diagnosing doc to do a school observation (they do sometimes, but it's uncommon).
What testing did they do, and did they get questionnaire-style input from parents and preschool/school teachers?
When our DS was diagnosed at age 5, the battery included:
Stanford Binet 5 (cognitive)
Woodcock Johnson III (academic achievement)
WIAT-II Word Fluency (academic achievement supplement)
Children's Memory Scale (memory)
VMI-V (visual-motor integration)
NEPSY Social Perception (social awareness/understanding)
ADOS (autism diagnostic observation schedule)
Vineland (adaptive behavior - parent report)
PDDBI (ASD characteristics - parent report)
CBCL/TRF (general behavior - parent/teacher report)
PLSI (pragmatic language - teacher report)
Of these, the ADOS, the Vineland, and the CBCL were the most important in diagnosing the AS. The PLSI was also useful.
now he seems so close to 'normal' that I don't really feel that this is necessary. It seems that almost all of the quirks, in all areas, that were present between the ages of 5-7 have melted away in the past six months.
Without new quirks being added in? Do your DS's teachers agree?
Our DS definitely has changed a lot over time, and has had lots of remediation of his deficits to the point where they are often harder to see. People with AS learn and grow. He has shed some quirks and had some new ones appear.
I'm just wondering if it's possible that he has somehow found a way to compensate and fit in. If he has done so (with AS), would the advice be to just let him be, as long as he's fitting in and doing well? Do AS symptoms ever wane like this? We did notice last fall that he was trying to find a way to solve his social problems. He also set about to work on his motor skills. A self-awareness seems to have come over him, though he still marches to his own beat.
In what ways is he still marching to his own beat? Are those ways acceptable to teachers and peers? Is he engaging in truly reciprocal conversation that shows awareness of others' thoughts and feelings (not just requests for information)?
AS symptoms usually get better over time, but not usually this quickly. The social problems turn from being egregious to more subtle (failing to make inferences about the characters in reading fiction, for example, rather than overtly offending peers). But they remain an important, lifelong deficit that needs to be compensated for if the person wants to fit into social norms and customs.
DeeDee
