I wanted to jump in on this thread because I have a DS5 who has received similar diagnoses from a neurologist and an occupational therapist. Aspie and/or SPD. She's currently in kindergarten, has her own aide assigned to her, and sees the OT twice a week for 30 minutes at a time. She has a pretty good social life, really, but has quite a few little quirks too. Most aren't horrible (though they are sometimes obvious), except for serious trouble with potty training... still.
On the flip side there are so many amazing qualities that blow my mind.
- For one, she has extraordinary memorization skills. Literally, if I tell her a story (even a non-familiar made up one), she can recite it back nearly word for word, even days later.
- She sees right through typical childhood "games", if you will. For example, if we say "you can only get this toy after you are a good girl sitting to get your hair cut", she'll reply "but the box doesn't say anything about having to sit to get my hair cut". One night I said it was time to see mommy to braid her hair. She non-chalantly put up her hand and stated to me "problem is, I don't want to get my hair braided"
- Similar to above, we visited a local kids theme park that featured "cinderella's castle". Much as she enjoyed that attraction, unfortunately the girl playing the part of Cinderella was a brunette. After we got out of the castle, her first words to me were "Daddy, when are we going to see the real Cinderella with the yellow hair?"
So, the way I look at it, with all the challenges come the blessings as well. God has given us each unique abilities... think how boring the world would be if we were all the same
And DS is starting to notice that other kids his age...even his "friends" at school...have a much richer social life than he does. They make plans with each other over the weekend. DS isn't included at that level.
It's interesting in a way to see this... my daughter's neurologist said that most likely one of her parents (e.g. DW or myself) was an Aspie. Between my DW and me, there was no question I wore that scarlet letter. In a way, it was initially very enlightening and freeing in a sense to learn so much about myself while learning about my daughter. Seeing what you said here about your son, I believe you said he's 16, really hits home for me pretty good. I was very blessed with a decent social life by then, but it took me a while to get to that point, and even then, I noticed similar to your son that it didn't seem as rich and frequent as others.
Even today, I know full well that there's certain things, particularly about social graces that I simply don't get. For the most part I've adjusted to work around that, but every now and again a moment that I can later laugh off makes it apparent. On the other hand, I spent much of my adolescence more or less on my own, playing with computers. Though maybe sad in some sense, if that hadn't been the case I probably wouldn't have as good a job as I do today. It's all in how you look at it.