PDDd is a bit more unusual than I think you realise. You said, "difficult child has extraordinary speaking skills. He could carry on a conversation with a stranger, better with adults. He can talk many adults under the table on sports, and other topics he knows so much about."
difficult child 3 genuinely fits the bill, despite seeming not to at first glance.
difficult child 3 makes good eye contact. He will initiate a conversation with a total stranger, especially on a topic he feels confident with. In public he is polite, well-mannered, friendly and outgoing.
So what makes difficult child 3 autistic?
In his case, it's the other stuff. Broadly speaking, autism is defines as inappropriate or disordered social interaction, some level of disordered sensory input; some level of delayed language development.
The delayed language development is not found in Asperger's Syndrome, as it's defined down under (and some other places). Also, delayed language development is not the same as delayed speech, difficult child 3 could speak, but he made no sense. He could mimic entire songs, film scripts etc but not understand what he was saying. As he learnt to read he understood the rules of phonics and could make a good stab at pronunciation, but not understand a word of it. It was weird. We went through patterns of jargon speech (aka 'talking in scribble' as defined by his big sister); then echolalia, where he would repeat chucks of dialogue he'd heard, as well as merely repeat what he'd been asked instead of answering. For difficult child 3, as he acquired proper language (ie with understanding) we found his speech to be extremely precise. At an age when most kids still have some difficulty pronouncing "th", for example, difficult child 3 was meticulous. He could read the words, so he knew there should be a "th" sound there, so he went to great effort to say it properly. People commented on how clearly and well he spoke, at age 6. But at age 6, he still had limited understanding of words like "why" and "how".
Now - he's halfway to a law degree, it seems. He's very articulate, very talkative, has an amazing vocabulary that would put a lot of adults to shame. he sounds like a walking thesaurus. But this is also part of the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) - the obsessive-compulsive side.
What is it about difficult child 3 that is still obviously Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)? The Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). The Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) - fussy about certain textures, certain foods and has a poor response to pain. His body awareness in general is odd - he was difficult to toilet train because he really had trouble being able to recognise when his body needed to go to the toilet. He still has trouble with this - we have to remind him to go. The extreme anxiety - he's learning to overcome it, but it's a problem.
Part of the disordered social interaction (and from your descriptions, your difficult child has this too) is he simply doesn't recognise any difference between talking to another child his age, or talking to an adult in authority. If a child is being verbally mean, difficult child will say mean things back. If he perceives an adult being mean - same result. They do not differentiate. They simply can't manage on the same wavelength as others their own age. difficult child 3 gets on well with adults, who find his conversation and lack of self-consciousness stimulating, but he also gets on well with much younger kids. His best friend is 9. He has several friends the same age.
The other interesting thing - what they receive, they dish out. So if you meet anger with anger, or shouting with shouting, it's telling them, "So THIS is how it's done!" These kids are very smart but they're trying to work out the social rules all on their own. We might TELL them, "Don't be rude to your teachers. Don't hit back." But what they SEE is different. A teacher is rude to him - he will be rude back, because if an adult in authority acts this way, they are the role model to emulate. Clearly the rule he has been told doesn't quite match the reality.
It's really hard for me to look at difficult child 3 and describe what it is about him that is abnormal, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). I'm used to him. Plus, he's doing his best to adapt. I live with it, I have trouble seeing where one begins and the other leaves off.
difficult child 3 is autistic. difficult child 1 is Asperger's Syndrome. difficult child 1 had NO language delay, but crikey, did he sure have other problems! Still, he wasn't diagnosed until he was 15.
difficult child 1 was withdrawn in some social situations, unlike difficult child 3.
When a toddler, we discovered difficult child 1 was terrified of animals, and of water. He would drink water but he wouldn't let his head go near it. He went years, literally, not having his hair washed with anything more than a washcloth. This fear was extreme - he would get hysterical. And we could find no reason for it, he hadn't been traumatised or anything.
When he was a little older and it was his birthday, people wanted to wish him Happy Birthday. That was OK - but to stand in front of everyone while they sang happy Birthday to him - he would curl up in a ball on the floor. difficult child 3 never did that, he never had a problem with it. All these kids are different.
difficult child 1 wouldn't give a talk to the class, until he was 10. difficult child 3 was happy to play the piano in front of the whole school, he wasn't nervous at all. He would be now; in his drama class last Christmas, he had to play the King in "The King's Breakfast" by A A Milne. This king is a bit like a spoiled child and difficult child 3 became so anxious we had to pull him out of the play. He was finally able to at least partly explain - he knew it was just acting, he understood that. But it is so hard for difficult child 3 to always concentrate on being good, on being nice and kind, he has to work so hard at it and still people too often see him as a problem. If he played a character who was not very nice, what would people think of HIM? And how could he go so far against what he was determined his own nature must be? Now that's complex, for difficult child 3. Later, in the movie, he was able to play Noah because "Noah was the original wildlife warrior".
Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kids are often very smart. Temple Grandin (her books are worth reading) described autism especially, as "an overdose of genius". These kids have in large measure, what in small measure would produce genius.
I used to think, with difficult child 1, that a lot of his problems were connected with disordered sensory input. He had a great deal of trouble filtering out the distractions of the world. We put on a shirt, and within a few minutes our skin touch receptors have adjusted to not 'feel' the shirt any more. Not with difficult child 1. Any adjustment is mild, he's constantly having to readjust. And it's the same with a lot of other things - noises, light, information. Imagine looking at the world as through a shattered stained glass window, hearing the world with iPod speakers blaring six different tunes simultaneously, vibrations all around you disturbing your balance and the constant fear that people are looking at you critically and about to hurt you or laugh at you.
That's difficult child 1.
On top of this, any TV show that we know he's watched; any book he's read, and difficult child 1 can quote verbatim. difficult child 3 is similar.
So very recently it was believed that autistic kids (I guess I'm including all Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) here) were not all that smart; they only SEEMED smart in the same way a talking parrot seems smarter than it is. They may have a brain load of information, but they can't use it.
Not true. Increasingly, we know that now. On Thursday difficult child 3 & I were watching a Science for Schools TV program on the Periodic Table. He's not covered this in school yet; just beginning to. But on the TV they were discussing the increasing densities of the Noble Gases as you go down the Periodic Table. difficult child 3 was saying, "So the extra protons, and the extra, filled electron shells mean that each atom is heavier and so it's more dense." He then asked, "What about the density of hydrogen? I suppose that's lighter than helium? So why don't we put hydrogen in balloons?"
I told him about the Hindenburg disaster, and also a poem I know by Hilaire Belloc ("George") which refers to a balloon "being of the dangerous sort" which got into a candle flame and exploded. He was then trying to work out how you could get hydrogen gas into a soap bubble.
This is a kid who USES the information he has in his head.
Kjs, I can't diagnose your difficult child for you. But a lot of the reasons you give for him NOT being Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) - difficult child 1 has the same things and he IS a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) kid.
Keep an open mind. And also, simply because it sounds like he's functioning that way, make contact with an autism network in your area and ask if THEY have any social skills programs for kids with extremely high-functioning autism.
difficult child 1 scores Mild on the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) score. difficult child 3 scores Moderate. But I believe difficult child 3 has a better prognosis, for a number of reasons. difficult child 1 lasted in mainstream school most of the way. easy child 2/difficult child 2, who is, we believe, definitely Asperger's but Mid on the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) scale, managed to go all the way through mainstream. difficult child 3,s anxiety and extreme perseveration and Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) issues plus the bullying, meant that he couldn't cope. There is now a school I could send him to, but he's doing so well now I don't want to change that.
Different kids manifest this in different ways. but there are some features in common. Somewhere in cyberspace there is a document written by Tony Attwood, on the gifts inherent in Asperger's Syndrome. They include things like perseverance, loyalty, extremely law-abiding (to their own laws, if nothing else), a good friend who will stick by you no matter what, intelligence, etc. One of the hallmarks of Asperger's is also the fascination with certain subject(s) to extreme level, and a need to share this with as many others as possible! Computer games, certain topics like Star Wars for difficult child 1, Star Trek for a young man we met at Social Skills class (he played a panda in the movie); stamp collecting etc. The interests can change with time. easy child 2/difficult child 2 was obsessed with teddy bears. She declared she was going to collect one of every kid of teddy in the world. She would keep them in a teddy-bear-shaped house. The teddy eyes would be twin observatories, looking out onto the stars (in search of more teddies?).
She's no longer so obsessed with teddies. Now it's Pirates of the Caribbean. Everything old-fashioned and romantic. She wears tight corsets because she says "it's like wearing a hug".
difficult child 1 was given for his 21st, by his friends, a ticket to the Premiere of the final Star Wars movie at Fox Studios in Sydney. He went in costume (as a Sith Jedi) and broke a $300 light saber.
And they're all wonderful, in their own way. I keep telling myself that through every meltdown, and the moments in between do make it all worthwhile.
Marg