Thanks both for your thoughtful responses, I really appreciate it.
AEH - there certainly were some less than ideal experiences for DS11 at primary school though I don't think a particular traumatic event as such. The school deteriorated significantly with a new principal and DS11 lost all respect for the administration in a short period of time - not a good outcome for someone with his personality. I've possibly underestimated the impact on him. He has come to see 'school' as run by incompetent, dishonest people who don't care about him, and while DS13 would shrug this off and carry on (more or less), DS11 is *rather* judgmental and unforgiving. Based on our experiences last year with DS13, the new school is infinitely better, but it may take some time to bring DS11 around. I'll see if the city library has the Wimmer book - thank you for the reference.
HowlerKarma - I read through those early posts, you really had a tough time of it. I recognised my son in some of those posts, including the devious use of devices in the night-time! Drives me bananas and I know it's dreadful for his health, but when he's at his dad's place I think it happens more often than either will admit. Which is a large part of why he goes there and I'd stop him if I could. He tends towards perfectionism, not to the extent your daughter does, but enough that it's likely to be a factor in his anxiety. I'm in your 'just--not--quite' position with most of the contenders for diagnosis.
I spent much of yesterday obsessively googling, to see what I could come up with. In the last few years there's been some interesting research around stress oxidisation/immune problems/mitochondrial dysfunction which may have some leads. When my boy isn't stressed you'd think he was a regular kid (for the most part), it's when the stress escalates that most of the autistic behaviours kick in, which in turn further limits his ability to deal with stress. It's a horrible feedback loop that can degenerate to extreme situations very quickly. The limited diet (ugh - beige food) may well be a contributing factor here too.
He's refused school again today, so I've booked an appointment at the GP to ask for a blood test referral (I'm very popular - for some reason he loves having this done). I'd like to check vitamin/mineral levels, and see if it's possible to easily test for biomarkers re immunity/stress.
There are a few university research programs in the city too, so they might be worth a call re genetic testing. I've never had psoriasis, but my mother did and my brother suffers badly, so that could be an autoimmune risk. DS11's father is the confirmed Aspie so I'd always assumed it was HIS fault :), but there are probably things to look at on both sides.
His new teacher rang yesterday to see how he is and if there's anything she can do. She's lovely! She was DS13's teacher last year and we were so impressed. She said to tell him that she'll be uploading all teaching material to the website where he can access them, so he doesn't need to worry about falling behind if there are days he misses. The contrast with last year's primary school - I emailed the principal, deputy and guidance officer to let them know my boy was in hospital and that he'd like some schoolwork, even just a few homework sheets, and NONE of them even bothered to respond.
I'll try to have a serious talk with DS11 later today about the realities of the situation: at some point he has to get back to school or he'll end up in hospital again. Hopefully he'll find the headspace to think this over calmly and meet the world halfway. I'll need to go in and talk to the school too - I'm sure they've dealt with this kind of thing before so will have some ideas.
Thanks goodness DS13 currently LOVES school! I'd be certifiable if I had both of them going to pieces at once.
