CCN, interesting ride you're on there.

Originally Posted by CCN
My DS in KG: impulsive, odd sounding speech, chewing everything, spinning, falling out of his desk chair, lying on the floor during circle, day dreaming, fixating on things he was curious about, pathologically curious, pathologically (good word wink ) friendly to a fault - had no fear of anyone and would leave with strangers, flight risk, inappropriate social responses, LOVES to run (can't "walk" either sits down or runs), intense, silly, excessively affectionate - loved to hug and climb onto people's laps, obsessed with taking things apart to see how they work (since 1 yr old), very tactile - MUST TOUCH EVERYTHING, very distractable (unless he was focused on something that interested him, played alone a lot (happily), also wanted to play with other kids but wasn't sure how, declined fidget toys because he was very self-conscious about being different. I could go on and on but I won't. Anyway, you get the idea. Some are classic spectrum things and some are not as much.

This list is, to my mind, quite spectrumy. I'm surprised that the people you were working with didn't do the ADOS or other autism-specific tests. It's possible that he was too lovey/huggy and that didn't meet someone's stereotype of what autism is supposed to look like, or because he was smart they just didn't consider it. But with that collection of traits, I would consider it and want to get testing by an autism expert to rule it in or out definitively.

There was a year when my DS fell out of every type of chair the elementary school owned...

Originally Posted by CCN
Now we recognize the language processing issues (likely always there), he daydreams excessively, gets emotional, still adores running!, fidgets & squirms, impulsive (but getting better), gets frustrated when he's trying to express himself verbally, gets frustrated when he knows something that others don't, intolerance for repetition, impatient, can be argumentative (i.e. too persistent), great sense of humour but has trouble recognizing the social cues of: "it's stopped being funny." Again I could go on, but you get the idea. Just like your DS he's changed dramatically but still has challenges.

It sounds like he's dramatically easier now, which I would expect with maturation and good parenting-- but those challenges still sound frustrating. The intolerance for repetition, the sense that he goes on with something after everyone around him is sick of it-- those can be the inflexibility and perseveration that come with autism. But they might not be-- I do not know your kid. I'm just suggesting that what you described sounds very familiar to me... and might be worth another look from that point of view.

DeeDee