Hang in there my grandson turned out just great. We could not be happier.

Autism is a fascinating phenomenon. It, in and of itself, seems to produce such a wide spectrum of functionality; from barely functional, to genius level qualities. I hope it gets "figured out" in my lifetime, as it seems to be a complete mystery as to origination.

My daughter is a budding therapist who aspires to work with autistic kids in practice, I'm very proud of her and need to sit with her one day soon to hear what she knows about it; far more than I, certainly.

We are all neurodiverse, it's just that some of the differences are more obvious to the casual observer than others.

Wishing you the very best to you and your little guy.

I often struggle with the concept of what is 'normal' and is it any better than 'special'. Personally, I prefer not being normal, even though the price can be high some days I would rather pay that price than be stuck in 'normal'.

I'm glad to hear the progress is continuing. You're a great dad, Joe.

The way I put it is that we are all making it up as we go.

Religion is supposed to provide an explanatory framework to function within for that purpose, but is a total fail in that regard.

My son suffered from schizoid personality disorder which is sort of like high functioning autism without even the desire to belong, and I share a faint echo of his mental climate ... my wife thinks of me as halfway to an Aspie sometimes. I guess I've done okay, as I'm an accomplished consultant and we're debt-free homeowners and productive members of society, despite an unfortunate detour into fundamentalism in my salad days. My stepson has some highly avoidant OCD-related things going on; it took him seven years to get through his undergrad program but he made it with high marks and is contemplating a career in academia.

All of which is to say, you're on the right track ... your son doesn't have to follow a rigid path / schedule conceived by neurotypicals who are mostly extroverts. Let him be him, like you are doing; make sure, like my parents did, that he never doubts your unconditional love for him, and you're giving him the best life that you can as a parent.

Make sure to check out all the brain plasticity stuff by Doidge and the rest.