What age did you suspect your child had 'high functioning' autism

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Posting here as little traffic on SN chat.
I know Asperger's isn't a used term now but that's kind of the level I'm talking about - autism which needs little external support. Is this often missed until older? When is it picked up by people other than the mum?

DS is just about to turn 5, I see various signs but I seem to be the only one. He's a clever little boy, probably a year ahead in reading and maths without any pushing from us. He struggles with lack of certainty, making decisions, time (is anxious about how long everything takes), has word final disfluency and uses very grown up language and old fashioned phrases. No specific special interests (enjoys board games, Lego and STEM activity sets), seems to have friends.

School are not worried, DH doesn't see it, grandparents don't see it.

Is high functioning autism often missed until they get older?

Thank you for all the responses.
It seems that it is often missed by schools until it reaches crisis point.
We have had meetings with the Senco regarding our other older child and they seem very supportive and understand masking.
I think I will leave it until after Christmas so he can get another term under his belt and they might see more behaviours that we see.

@PTSDBarbiegirl - do you have any advice on how to support reading skills?

@fflappysam - that's very frustrating. We had similar issues with my older son. Camhs refused to diagnose him (said he just had 'autistic traits').

So we paid for a private appointment with Dr Daphne Keen (then a paediatrician at St Thomas's hospital), and she diagnosed DS1.

It was completely different with DS. It had been so hard to get a diagnosis for DS1 that I assumed he wouldn't qualify. In the end, he got really unwell with low weight caused by ARFID (an eating disorder often related to autism), and the Camhs psychologist organised the assessment. It's made a big difference to him and he's getting really good at advocating for himself.

At 7 though may have been a year or two sooner if not for lockdown. She's now 8 and academically able but finds school so hard that she has full time support.

(We’re in the NE of England). We only got a diagnosis because my DH had a chance conversion with our Practice Nurse. She told him we needed a referral to the Community Paediatrician who was the one responsible for ASD diagnoses in the area.

if you have a local Autism charity, I would recommend contacting them for help getting the right route.

I agree.

Maybe a classification of the sort that's used for asthma would work? Mild, exercise induced, etc... Obv there would be differences in the 'induced' terminology - school induced, food induced, socially induced, and maybe terms related to main expression - anxious type, sensory type, verbal type, etc. Nothing really seems to fit the bill really.

Did we spot the sign from birth retrospectively? Oh yes! Turns out waking every 45 minutes from three months to nearly a year (and nearly breaking his parents in the process) was a massive flag. And he was never a textbook baby, did things in all the wrong order. But he was our first. Once we’d had DS2 it was much more obvious that textbook babies really existed (we’d wondered if everyone else was just telling fibs!).

Always suspected: the way he acquired language as a baby. He never babbled. He never copied sounds. He didn’t speak until it was full sentences.

@SalmonWellington yes, DM me I can send link to something that may be helpful.

I think when I had DC2 and never ever felt the need to google “does my toddler have ASD” or do the MCHAT test that I realised how much I knew DC1 had ASD from an early age.