Regarding social skills, he is behind. Social skills don't come intuitively to him as they do to my younger child. DS has friends - particularly a little girl who is a bit of a tomboy and he seem to get along great and do playdates and hang out together at the afterschool program. 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.
I've read as much as I can about Aspergerger's and ADHD inattentive type in gifted kids as well as profoundly gifted kids behavior (not that he has the scores for that). 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.
I decided to have him evaluated by someone familiar with gifted and 2e kids (Amend), because it's not my place as his mom to diagnose him (I'm a doctor so I have a tendency to diagnose things on my own).
I really appreciate hearing your thoughts, it helps me clarify my own
DeeDee thanks for the tidbit regarding meltdowns being anxiety related in your son, I think that mixed with perfectionism may be a significant part of the meltdowns we are having.
