I have no idea what to tell you, but you do have to bring up the behaviour as best as you can. Although you are already familiar with the lower-functioning kids (Kanner's syndrome), you need to read up a little on high functioning autistics and asperger's syndrome. Although both HFA and AS have similarities with the KS kids, there are some differences too.
Tell the psychologist that you used to work with the low functioning kids and that you are seeing similarities. It is really important to your 5 year old that you give the psychologist as much detail as possible as to why your 5 year old reminds you of the autistic kids. Is it meltdowns? Unusual speech? (Unlikely since the low functioning kids tend to not say much.) Rocking motion? Unusual eye contact (too much or not enough)? Not much of an expression on her/his face? Problems with estimating other people's reactions? Those are a few things that need to be brought up.
If you can, you probably will not know this info, give the psychologist any information on developmental milestones (language and motor skills are the primary ones of interest). It is important to mention those things as well as any other autistic symptoms. Hopefully then the psychologist will know the rest of the things to look for.
I can only speak from an autistics view point so I really don't know what makes the NTs think we are "weird". I can look through the list of criteria and say, "I identify with that," but I don't know how the psychologists look for it. Just remember, 1 in 166 kids have autism and it is important to get it checked out as soon as possible in order to assure the child learns coping mechanisms as early as possible.
I have no idea what to tell you, but you do have to bring up the behaviour as best as you can. Although you are already familiar with the lower-functioning kids (Kanner's syndrome), you need to read up a little on high functioning autistics and asperger's syndrome. Although both HFA and AS have similarities with the KS kids, there are some differences too.
Tell the psychologist that you used to work with the low functioning kids and that you are seeing similarities. It is really important to your 5 year old that you give the psychologist as much detail as possible as to why your 5 year old reminds you of the autistic kids. Is it meltdowns? Unusual speech? (Unlikely since the low functioning kids tend to not say much.) Rocking motion? Unusual eye contact (too much or not enough)? Not much of an expression on her/his face? Problems with estimating other people's reactions? Those are a few things that need to be brought up.
If you can, you probably will not know this info, give the psychologist any information on developmental milestones (language and motor skills are the primary ones of interest). It is important to mention those things as well as any other autistic symptoms. Hopefully then the psychologist will know the rest of the things to look for.
I can only speak from an autistics view point so I really don't know what makes the NTs think we are "weird". I can look through the list of criteria and say, "I identify with that," but I don't know how the psychologists look for it. Just remember, 1 in 166 kids have autism and it is important to get it checked out as soon as possible in order to assure the child learns coping mechanisms as early as possible.
I hope that helped some.
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