Hi Roxie. I find what you were told to be interesting...I will elaborate shortly. Generally children without a language delay are classified as Asperger's and children who have a language delay are classified with autism. I do not know how much background knowledge you have of the subject so please forgive me if I write things that you are familiar with already. The "spectrum" goes from PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, which means that the child does not have enough characteristics to be classified as Asperger's/HFA/autism). This is generally thought of as the "mildest" form, which is a joke in itself in my opinion because if you ask any mother of a child wit it she will definitely tell you that there is nothing mild about it! Then in the middle of the "spectrum" you have the Asperger's and HFA and to the right you have the more severe profound autistic children. I hope that this is making some sense.
My son has been with HFA by one doctor and Asperger's by another. He has also been classified as having CP-NOS as either a result of him lacking oxygen at birth (he was not breathing), or when he was 10 months old he had severe seizures and stopped breathing. We really do not have a lot of answers. There is some controversy as to whether or not Asperger's and HFA are the same thing. I was also told that it really did not matter WHAT we called it...autistic is autistic and they are either autistic or they are not. Whatever...
I was also told that there is no more SID that it is part of the autism.
I know that you must be lost and confused. It is very stressful and you feel so hopeless and do not even know where to begin in the beginning. Have they started an intervention for him? If not you can make a few phone calls and get the ball rolling yourself. In most states there is a state funded early intervention program that helps to get you set up with therapies. We did not even have to have a diagnosis, just told them that the doc suspected autism. What matters the most is getting help as soon as possible. I cannot even begin to tell you how much the therapies that we started this past year have helped here (DS is 3). We are still in the process of a "diagnosis" even though we have had one from several peds, a ped neuro, and the local ASA. Last week we went to the Autism Clinic for a full psychiatric eval. What I am trying to say is that these things take a lot of time sometimes, but there ARE things that you can do in the meantime. My DS has really done well with PT (they do OT and SIT too), and social skills and play hterapy. A lot of people swear by the ABA but so far we have not been able to afford that too.
Great big hugs are being sent your way. I have rambled a bit but I hope that I have said something that helps. The ladies here are wonderful.
& Sissy 
yeahhhh we're 7!! 
Frankie (12) McKenna (9)
