Isaiah09, it sounds like you are doing all the right things, and you have a good plan. I would like to second what laurel said re reading the Eides books and listening to your gut. Although we haven't wondered about autism with our kids, we have had a very similar experience re ADHD. In the case of our EG ds, he was at one point diagnosed with ADHD but his ped felt what the psych who diagnosed the ADHD was seeing were in fact related to being intellectually gifted. The Eides' Misdiagnosis book clarified what we were seeing as high IQ combined with a bit of other type of 2e, not ADHD, and that's held true as he's matured and what sometimes looked like ADHD has slipped away.
With our older dd *we* (parents) often wondered if she didn't have ADHD and her pediatrician was convinced she had ADHD based on her inability to focus at her dr appointments combined with the troubles she had socially and at school. Turns out... she had severe double vision... which we found out by the results of IQ testing where her scores dropped dramatically on two subtests that relied on vision.
With each of our kids we've found that it's a bit of a journey (sometimes a very long journey!) to get to a full understanding of why we see the behaviors we see - for our 2e ds we'd solve one challenge and then there would be another one, more thinking it through more testing etc. But it was all good in the long run - each set of data you get, each piece of advice from a professional etc, even comments from preschool teachers that you might not want to hear or believe - they all are data points you'll file away, analyze, and compile together to get a good understanding of what is up with your ds.
Re what other parents say - I'm guessing that maybe you're getting something just a little bit beyond the parent who is reacting to thinking you're pushing your child's IQ - if you are aware of social challenges, other parents may be seeing that too. I wouldn't tell another parent my ds was suspected of being a savant or highly gifted or whatever... and for the most part I haven't shared specifics of our 2e journey with other parents either, except when I find a fellow parent who's dealing with similar issues. It's not that I feel like I have to hide as much as the thing is, when my kids were really young (preschool and early elementary) I found that many many parents were very into their own children's achievements and developmental milestones, and when you talk about your own kids, they are looking at what your child is doing mirrored into what their child is doing. And really, all kids are really really different no matter what their IQ.. so sometimes those conversations felt like parents trying to compete even though what I think is really happening is just caring parents looking for more data points to better understand their own child.
Parenting a child who is young and struggling in any way can feel very isolating. Try to not worry about what those other parents may say, and feel free to let us know what you're worried about and how the evaluation goes.
Best wishes,
polarbear
