HFA son struggling at school, can they catch up eventually with their peers?

[Muffinmaker]

My son is HFA and 5 1/2 years old. He is a few months delayed and has repeated reception. He goes to a mainstream school and it has a small class size and is well structured, but he struggles to pay attention. His attention span is improving. He can now watch a magic show at a party where before he would run about and constantly go in and out of the toilets (he had an obsession with toilets and flushes). His teacher seems to think he has made progress. His writing has improved and he has a small sight vocabularly. At the same he is very good at making patterns with objects and they have very complex symmetry. He also makes pictures out of objects, machines. He has imaginative play, stubborn, sense of humour. He really lacks motivation (unless it is something he really wants to do). I am worried though how he will do next year (year 1) where the pace of work is intensified.

I recently put a similar thread on here, concerned about the transition from reception to year 1 - (my DS has language delay and subtle social communication difficulties). The general view was that year 1 isn't that big a step up from reception - that I should be more concerned about the transition from year 2 to year 3 (i.e. to junior school). I would have a chat with Senco and year 1 teacher next term, that's what I am intending to do, to think ahead as to what his needs will be come September.

Your ds sounds very much like mine who is as, 7 and in yr2.
My ds1 had an obsession with toilets too - the amount of playgroups/parties/parks where all I saw was the smelly toilets! That waned last year thankfully.
My ds1 struggles academically, but is now oxford reading tree stage 4 which leaves hime in the bottem of his class, but that still means there are several other children on the same stage as him and so he doesn't feel too different even though some of them are 9 stages in front of him.
Like your son, if he's not interested he finds it hard so he can work out how old I'll be in 12 years time,but he can't add 2 and 5 because it has no meaningful context for him.
School are happy because he is making progress- eg his handwriting is now a reasonable size whereas last year it was huge. They try and motivate him with stickers and things like the '5 minute box' which I think is phonics or maths work in short bursts.
I was worried about yr2 sats, but then his teacher reassured me that it's all teacher assessment and he won't notice he's doing it.
I won't lie and say I don't worry about him catching up with his peers, but I hope that just like with his speech when he was younger - he will get there just later than average. I think his whole life will be like that so I don't expect him to leave home at 18, but I do think he will eventually.
I do work with him at home by brbing him with sweets eg last year his writing was huge and illegible so I did the 'write from the start' book with him. At the moment I'm sticking phonics around the house, but I think his twin 4yr old siblings are focussing on them more than him!
I worry more about the social side of school because that upsets him more - eg he wants friends, but has no idea how to make them . School find this stuff a lot harder to work on with him, but they have just put him in a 'nurture' group where they do conversation skills and social things.
Sorry to go on. I spend a lot of time thinking about this too. I think it's excellent your ds1 repeated a year - I'd like ds1 to stay in his small world of primary school for ever.