mum2 he sounds a lot like my ds3, who is a sociable child with autism.
He does display autistic criteria but coming at it from a different angle- instead of his inappropriate social skills being withdrawal, theya re through non discrimination between people, being in your face all teh time, having absolutely no social nouse IYKWIM.
Now, he is seven and school agrees that as he ages he becomes more obviously autistic- more spells of withdrawal for example. But he is still sociable (the reverse of my AS ten year old) and every time he accesses support someone asks to take him home LOL!
He also attends a school where every child has Sn but not ASD yet fits well with the ASD children; we was diagnosed at 6.
According to all teh definitions I have, it's a simple criteria- AS = triad with no language delays ; HFA = triad, language delays (technically at age 3) but IQ above 65; LFA = triad, language delays at age three, IQ below 65
BUT
In many children like my ds3 there also needs to be an awareness of functional ability- ds3 does have a high IQ but will never achieve independence even of the basic level of a self managed shopping trip becuase of his withdrawn times, innocence and complete inability to pay attention to more than one thing- he just doesn't have a seconds stream of attention to give. The high IQ is great- it emans he can read, play PC games, etc- but won;t make the difference between independence and dependence.
There's also ds1, whose AS can be undetectable in small timespans, has a decent IQ but when he loses it goes so badly that as a pre-teen he needs 1-1 adult supervision at all times or people get hurt.
The more I experience their growing development, the more I relaise that IQ etc is mroe significant to soem than toehrs: if for example you ahve extremely poor social skills but an IQ that allows you to access a very specialised work or academic area then it buys you much; otoh if a high IQ fails to be backed up by functional ability then it is as nothing in the reality of things.
And the same for L:FA children: for the very lowest functioning then very little else will get in a look edgemways and tbh many APeds would see a dx of LD before the ASD co-morbid; however, a child at the higher end of LFA may well have prospects oif they have otehr comorbid skills- I worked in a unit whrere the people meetiong that deascription wpould make money for themselves cleaning buses at the depot; these days those people would have more independence probably being in supported accomodation rather than a unit.
And yes- wrt to the use of autistics: not something I like. PArtly for the simple phraseology but also becuase it reads as a denial of their humanity. The mroe we head down the avenue of gentic explanations for ASD the mroe the freaks* creep out of the cupboards with comments about genetic differences equate to non humanity; keeping the people in the terms we use matters.
*Whilst nto a word I often use, am happy to utilise freaks for anyone wishing to deny my boy's humanity.