Diagnosis of S&L delay with autistic traits

[Mumoftwinsandanother]

I was wondering if anyone had experience with this diagnosis (or lack of diagnosis) and how it may play out in the future. Went to paed appointment today, she spent over 3 hrs with us and had, I felt, a clear picture of him playing/doing cognitive tasks/talking. She is the consultant paed who will ultimately make the diagnosis following an ADOS. What we had today wasn't an official ADOS. She wasn't allowed to/wasn't prepared to diagnose off the back of today but she informally told us that although he clearly has some form of neurological developmental issue it is likely that he may not qualify for a diagnosis of ASD (good eye contact, good non-verbal communication and reasonable verbal communication and great imagination). I think this is quite accurate as although he definitively has social communication issues, mild sensory issues, mild repetitive behaviours (more along the lines of the odd flap of the hands, some toe-walking etc but you can only really notice if you look hard).

I guess the answer here is that this may go either way. He may outgrow his autistic traits and move past this all. Alternatively, as he gets older the traits may become more obvious as the social situations he has to deal with become more complex/disordered with the result he potentially ends up with mental health issues/ultimately a full ASD diagnosis. Just wondered if anyone had any experience with this. Thanks

I think the older they get the more prominent it becomes, i spoke to a pychologist not so long back and she told me the Ados is only a tiny part of it, our peadatrician was going to diagnose my son with high functioning and sensory issues depending on what school said, apparently she received nothing from school so decided on traits!, school got a private Ot afterwards who said he had sensory processing disorder, anyway, we shall wait and see as school have now put on a Taf as one of the goals to get a diagnoses of high functioning.

Not speaking as any kind of expert here but...

There's no way to tell really. Some kids improve and adapt with age. Some become noticeably different to their peers as they get older.

In asd I think things get hardly socially as they get older. Relationship and the world get more complicated.

My older boy ( not asd - high asd traits but hes dyspraxic with Lang disorder) can be as wacky as a fruit cake one week then settle down for a month or two. He defiantly reacts to stress interestingly. He never says he is upset or stressed. But if I'm worried about him he seems to get more flappy etc.

However most people tell me they think he is like any other child.

I never dreamed he would be how he is today. I'm a happy suprised. But he will never be "normalised" I have to accept quirky kids grow into quirky adults where life long neurological conditions are concerned.

Don't try to think to far ahead. A delay could be just that, but not in our case