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It certainly doesn't surprise me that kids could be misdiagnosed with autism.
Type 3 sounds like my son when he was younger except there was no resistance to change. He always liked change and he seemed precocious in a lot of areas because he was so interested in everything.

He was recognizing words at two and read his first easy reader book that he hadn't seen before at 2 1/2 and was able to spell words and identify words that were spelled out for him. He hadn't been taught to read except I always put my finger underneath the words as I read to him. He always seemed to be able to comprehend whatever he was reading without a problem. If he didn't understand something he read he would certainly ask about it. He could memorize scripts and song lyrics so quickly that a teenager in the class told me that he must be autistic or something to be able to do that. He also had a lot of excess energy when he was excited about something and would kind of flap his arms like he was shaking out the excess energy and in fact that is how he described it. It was because of the stimming and talking like an adult that my sister thought he might have Aspergers even though doctors said he didn't. He stopped doing that in public when he got older and started pointing out every time I would do any kind of stimming behavior like tapping on the steering wheel when I drive in traffic or tapping a foot when nervous about something. As far as I know, I am not autistic, but I wonder if I would have been diagnosed with autism in elementary school. l did not talk to anyone outside of my family when I was in elementary school, hid in my long hair, didn't like to make eye contact, and read a lot. I outgrew a lot of my differences without any kind of therapy.

My son is now 15 and even though I don't limit video games, he reads more than he plays games and he reads about a lot of different things. His interests are definitely not limited. He wants to talk to me about what he has been reading and get my opinion and is more than happy to tell me all about it and help me form an opinion if I haven't read or thought about whatever he is talking about especially in the middle of the night when he can't sleep because of pain issues.

rhp, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Your post gave me a lot to reflect upon.

rhp! thanks so much for your thoughtful reply

DS6 was reading sight words by 18 months and reading books (like the Mr Men series) by 2.5 years, although he understood what he read. He was a late talker, as in multiple word sentence speaker, but he could type sentences from two. I worried a little about him until he was two, when he gave me a hug; he didn't request affection, but happily received it. Other than that, I didn't see any traits in him that had me worried.

I would put him in the categories of hyperlexia II (minus any ASD traits) and also Einstein syndrome. Although he hasn't lost those "savant-like" skills.

Great post, and I really agree with all of this. My DD9 is a pretty fascinating case study. While not hyperlexic (she didn't read till almost 5, though she became a very good reader right away), she possessed many highly unusual memory skills, was somewhat echolalic, and had some other autism red flags, but many other things about her do not "read" ASD at all. At age 9, she is very socially sought-after but I still see some behavior that reads as "stimming" to me (others do not see it--it's subtle) and there is still a high degree of extreme emotionality and some other traits that suggest ASD. Yet she really is a highly questionable DX and the older she gets, the more we think this would be wrong. However, there are some things she continues to need help with and I do think there are parts of her brain that are "wired" ASD. (For instance, her eye contact is totally normal EXCEPT when she is very upset or in big trouble--at these moments, she has trouble with it and prefers to fidget with something and not look at us. She says this allows her to listen and that if she looks at us, she "can't think." Otherwise, we never notice eye contact problems. This is a perfect example of her "gray area" stuff.)She has sensory quirks for sure. BTW, though, she was a very EARLY talker, speaking in full paragraphs at 18 months, but with strange syntax and pronouns all reversed.

Thanks for this post, and thanks also to rhp for the very thoughtful comments. I think DD also fits the Hyperlexia III profile (although I had never heard of the type I), and I think I do/did too. It is really nice to hear this kind of thing, because sometimes people (especially around here, it seems) focus only on the autistic-type symptoms and use that to write DD off (e.g., kick her out of school, etc.). Whereas when I was a kid I think there was a much wider range of behaviors that were considered 'weird,' but were more or less tolerated at least as far as grownups were concerned. I keep thinking we live in an area that is really backwards in this regard so it is good to have articles and other resources that discuss it so in case anybody is open to discussion, I can show them that it's not just me making it up

Funny thing, that is pretty close to normal behavior, other than the introspective awareness of why. If anything it sounds more towards a hyper-empathic place.

DS3.4 is one of those very early readers (would fit most Hyperlexia III but he understands what he reads) and very delayed speech. He received Autism diagnosis before he turned 3 (after a very quick eval). If he was a child who wasn't a late talker, he would be simply an early reader with severe sensory processing disorder. But because of the speech delay, everyone immediately jumps to Autism with splinter skills. Except ... he does NOT have splinter skills. He's too good in too many areas to have these be splinter skills. And he's one of those kids for whom therapy turns out to be a complete disaster. He now gets a total of 90 minutes therapy spent with DS4.11 to work on sensory problems but that's about it and I couldn't be happier with that set up. And if the school tells me one more time to put him in special ed preschool or self contained classroom, I will completely lose it.

Is he really autistic? We don't know. We have another evaluation set up for about 6 months from now through a different place than last time and until then (and even after the evaluation) our plan is to simply follow DS's lead. He can't stand anyone teaching him or repeating things to him. He self-taught himself to read and now he's using that knowledge to teach himself to speak. And he doesn't want anyone messing with his system

DS4.11 looks at us when he's talking to us and explaining things to us but he has ZERO ability to look at me (or anyone else) when we are talking to him. His eyes are all over the place or on the floor and he tells me he can't listen if he's looking at me.

I think it wouldn't read normal to you if you were in our shoes. It feels quite maddening because she absolutely will not look at us in these situations and instead appears focused on a toy she is fiddling with, an edge of a rug, etc. It "feels" like she is not listening. But in fact she is. At this point, we have let it go--but I do feel concerned about how this behavior looks to teachers and other outsiders.

We never ever notice anything unusual about eye contact at other times. When SHE talks to US at times of high emotion, she makes eye contact. This problem only comes out when WE are talking to HER at times of high emotion.

What you say about hyper-emapthic is, in fact, not totally at odds with some new thinking about ASDs, Some say that rather than not "feeling anthing" socially, some people with ASD are just feeling too much, or experiencing feelings of overwhelming social input. If DD is ASD-ish, I would definitely place her in this category. She is highly sensitive and in fact way reads too much into tiny voice modulations, etc.