Temple's book helped me to understand that ASD is cultural in nature and helped me to respect and accept my son's uniqueness and gifted brilliance. Three was an especially rough age because he was alway on the move- perpetual motion- he is also diagnosised ADHD- and my goal for him -ages 3-7 was simply to keep him alive- I had to nail windows closed- dress him in bright neon colors- lost him countless times- he tried to open batteries and 'pour the energy' into his lego constructions, at age 4 after watching Bill Nye- he burned salt and sugar packets on a hot electric burner I had just turned off, at age 7 tasted the end of a plugged in ac adapter to see what energy tasted like- I could go on and on.. but we made it- the whole time I understood that it was because he had this advanced genius IQ coupled with an emotional delay that made it impossible for him to percieve danger. His thinking is very rubiks cube- anything that is once learned is almost impossible to unlearn. We have been very fortunate that he has responded well to the gfcf diet as well as other diet restrictions. He is able to attend public middle school and actually made the honor roll with a combination of mainstreaming with an aide and special ed. He has a severe writing disability and through out grade school had severe pragmatic language delays which were impossible to get diagnosised properly I was told because he was already so old. That is one piece of advice I would give is to get a pragmatic language eval now - it means how he functionally uses his language- my son was so traumatized and I feel actually abused by our school system because they failed to recognize his aspbergbers and language and writting delays. He was perpetually a tazmanian devil under the stress of expectations he couldnt possible achieve despite his genius. He could tell you scientifically why it thunders and lightenings but regressed into and infantile states or tazmanian states if startled, hurt, scared, sick, hungry or asked to write or speak on stage or in large groups- he was unable to use his language to meet his basic needs- if you even asked him about his feelings it was like a light switch -he lost bladder control and entered instant terrible twos- along with all the infantile noises. And again if you read to him- instant light switch to a child who appeared atleast 4 years advanced. once I understood that his behaviors were not unpredictable and were a form of communication -it became much easier- we developed bond and a trust that I would strive to understand, respect and believe him and the behaviors became less and less pronounced. Convincing the school officials they were causing the behaviors was another story. He had severe reading and writing delays- and every night I read him age appropriate books for hours on end- he was like a sponge and absorbed everything- and I would beg or borrow anything childrens literature I could get my hands on. The school had some redicoulus policy about not letting children take school books home- and in the special ed classed they were using discarded books from the 50's and 60's while my other child studied from books printed in the late 90's and 2000's! Basically I home schooled him- at nights and on weekends- we took as much as we could outdoors- I became a teacher of all trades. If I didnt have to work I woundnt have waisted his time in school. Now he has an absolutely incredible teacher- he has advanced almost 4 years in his delayed areas in 6 months . He was functionally reading at 1st grade and writing below kindergarten though verbally he learned at an advanced age. -Tell us more about your son. -meme