Reply #21: My oldest son has Asperger's. He's 27 now,

[SheilaT]

and did not figure out what it was that made him so different until he was 18 years old and halfway through high school.

I'm largely grateful that we got such a late diagnosis. And there just weren't programs out there for people his age as he was coming through school.

I did notice that I had to rehearse him for social situations, and I knew that wasn't normal once a kid was past three or so. And I knew many other moms thought I was really an overbearing, interfering mom, but he needed a lot more intervention and help than their kids did. I found that by explicitly explaining to him what he needed to say and how he needed to behave was very useful.

Several years ago he was in college, living in a dorm. And I asked him if the guys on his floor ever complained that their girlfriends were high maintenance. He said, yes, many of them said that. I told him he needed to think of us neuro-typicals as all being high maintenance, just like those girlfriends. A light went off in his eyes, and I think it helped. He's still somewhat socially awkward, he still doesn't get nuances of behavior, but he has his circle of friends and to me he's the most wonderful young man I know. Along with his younger brother, who is about as opposite of having Asperger's as a person can be and still be within the so-called normal spectrum of behavior.