He's been told there's 'something wrong with him' by nasty kids in the past, and he is different from other kids.
Really sweet, a bit awkward in terms of understanding personal boundaries (very touchy / feely, sometimes overwhelmingly so, I just think he loves physical contact), his speech is always the clearest and he repeats incorrect verbal formations until the cows come home. Literally spent last two years starting every sentence with 'Even...', and has only just stopped doing this, though it sometimes sneaks in.
We had him assessed by educational psychologist when he was in Y3 as he was struggling to get to grips with maths and english, and she diagnosed 'specific speech impairment', which explains the language processing issues.
His handwriting is terrible, but he works reasonably well when he's typing on word processor, and while his grades aren't amazing, he's keeping up with the average, albeit with huge input from us during homework.
He still struggles socially, not picking up people's cues, but he is generally liked as he is really sweet, and the older years especiaally seem to make a fuss of him.
He ran his finger over a sharp blade and cut himself at hockey, and a dad who was watching asked him if he had autism. The dad in question has an autistic son. He came home and asked me what autism was, and whether he might have it, and I told him that we'd had him assessed and no one had ever suggested he did.
Then this aft, he came in and asked again, after misjudging a situation where a group of boys were goofing around - he thought they were play-fighting and joined in!
I explained about physical boundaries and he nodded, but I can never tell if he's even in control of his impulses. I don't know if he is a tiny bit on the spectrum, what that means, what support I could be giving him,
or whether he's just a sweet, other-worldly, quite immature child for his age?
