Our son is loving, he reaches out to people, even those he doesn't know, and never has had any problem at all with being singularly focused on subjects or things, nor has he had a problem with excluding others. He listens patiently to other children and doesn't push his own agenda or ideas. Actually, he often knows information, but doesn't share it because he's learned that this seems to put kids on the defensive (when he knows a lot about 'their' subject).
Our DS is loving, too. It's perfectly possible to have a charming, cheerful, loving child who also has AS. (My DS is the only fourth grader who'll still hold his mom's hand on the way home from school. Which means the mom has to gently discourage it, so he won't be picked on. Sigh.)
Sohn and Grayson have written a useful book called Parenting Your Asperger Child; they identify different types of children with Asperger's. Not all of them perseverate or lecture on one topic (the "little professor" stereotype); most are not mathy. Some have rich fantasy lives that it's hard to get them out of. Some get stuck on rules, trying to make other people conform to rules and build systems of rules for themselves to make the world make sense to them. Some are passive because they have the feeling that they don't quite get the subtext of what's going on, so they nod and agree and use small-talk language and go along for the ride without ever being full participants. It might be useful to you to do a little reading and see whether any of the types fit your DS.
I also like The OASIS Guide to Asperger Syndrome: good overview book.
That's one of the things that so tiring about all of this. I keep trying to pin him down: Is he PG? Is he an Aspie? Is he both? I just cannot get over this need to put him into some category in order to understand him better, kwim? I think it's about (my) expectations more than anything.
I think it's great that you're aware of your hopes and expectations, and the way in which the diagnosis troubled you. It is not a fun process.
My experience is that having a diagnosis you can trust is quite liberating: it means the issues you see are not your or your DS's fault, and it usually means there are concrete steps you can take to make things better.
With our DS, the AS was apparent enough that we spent a lot of time remediating that first, and only somewhat later had room to give serious thought to his giftedness as a major factor in his education.
They were both present all along, of course. We still have "gifted" moments and "Asperger" moments (I dislike the term Aspie--you wouldn't give a nickname to any other disability...) and "combination of both" moments. That's just our experience. Blended. It's not possible to separate the giftedness from the AS in my kid-- the phenomenal memory, for instance, is an AS trait and also a gifted trait, all part of his wiring. "Both" is an OK answer for us; it might not be for you.
If you feel your DS has "overexcitabilities" (a term about which I am skeptical, as it covers up issues rather than revealing them), do they match to any extent the list of oddities that come with AS? Anxiety, poor perspective taking, difficulty with transitions especially in the early years, need to have others follow rules or direct their play? All of that and more can be written off as "overexcitable"-- or sometimes these traits are part of something identifiable as a neurological disorder. AS is a "syndrome," which means a person doesn't have to have the complete list of symptoms to be diagnosed, just a cluster of them.
Of course, if he does have AS, then I want to know and I want to get him all of the help that's available.
That's how I see it. And if he has AS, it's to his advantage if he knows that and comes to terms with it before he's a teenager. My DS finds it very useful to be able to predict what's hard for him rather than just being frustrated.
If it takes another eval for you to get clarity on this, you can do it. Make sure they do the ADOS, which is the best test for a "yes/no" on autism. They probably wouldn't start from scratch, but would take the IQ and achievement testing from your previous report (assuming it's thorough) and just add whatever tests they want for ruling in or out.
If you pursue it, I'd seek out an autism center that sees and treats lots and lots of kids; it increases the odds that they've seen one sort of like yours, though the percentage of AS kids with DYS-level scores is very small.
And I wouldn't let them show me the door until I had not only an understanding of why they think yes or no, but also, if "yes," treatment recommendations that work locally and with your insurance.
HTH,
DeeDee
