Often a child with autism has one person (usually the mom) that they do this with. As Mum3 says, it's part of the deal with this diagnosis. Often it means that they've trained you to give them what's easy for them and doesn't stretch their capacities.
In our case it's the opposite-- while dd says I "get her better than anyone else, I'm also one of the very very few who doesn't let her skate. She can work that disability like nobody's business with most people. With me she works harder and with less complaining because she knows it doesn't work.
We homeschooled through the mid-grades (fourth through eighth) with a couple of abortive attempts at the public gifted magnet. It worked pretty well for us until eighth grade, which is why she's at the high school now. Her brother (also at the high school) was homeschooled for fourth, fifth and sixth, but did pretty well with the middle school option available, so he was officially enrolled there (though he missed a lot of school time for cultural events, or if we were working on something interesting at home).
That's how things are with my 4-year old ... I get the most out of him and don't let him get away with much. I just gently remind him "who's in charge!" and he goes back into "compliance mode"
We've taken sort of an unofficial break from most therapy the last 2 weeks with DS 2.10 (only kept one OT session that he really enjoys) and he's seriously thriving! I've never seen him engaging so well like the last two weeks ... and started following some simple directions that before he paid zero attention or I had to tell him to do something 5 times and now I say "get your sippy cup" and he looks for it and brings it ... right away! and things like that.
I did notice that as he's trying to talk more, he's not opening his mouth much, which makes all the words sound more like babbling when in fact he's saying words and sentences. It's like he needs some sort of physical speech therapy rather than what he's been receiving. Even when he eats, he takes really small bites rather than opening his mouth much. I have to check into this!
other than that, I really think homeschool might be the way to go with him if we can somehow pull it off when the time comes!
