Diagnosis confusion

Technically yes, you are either autistic or not.  However, there are some professionals who say things like "everyone is somewhere on the autistic spectrum" (such a comment was made by Dr Christian on Channel 4's embarrassing bodies piece on autism), which I disagree with personally.

The issue clinically, is where professionals fail to recognise the presentation of autism in an individual, because they are good at masking, are not displaying their normal behaviours in a clinical environment, clinician's don't have sufficient autism expertise or the traits are at the milder end so they don't think the person needs a diagnosis (wrong on many counts!).  So there are more and more parents of autistic children out there being told "not enough traits for a diagnosis", e.g. sub-clinical.  Parents are being told by CAMHS that "s/he is managing at school so s/he doesn't need a label" (being completely ignorant to the fact that the child is holding their stress in at school and releasing it on the family at home) and paediatrians are telling parents "we don't like to label" etc.

So whether you have autism or not, is not the same as whether you get diagnosed or not.

A paediatrician, as I understand it, does not diagnose (perhaps cannot) without the input of several disciplines, such as S&L, psychologist etc.  The NHS NICE Guidelines recommend a multi-disciplinary assessment and that is best practice.

I am absolutely horrified that you have been given a child said to be autistic and told to look up their traits on the internet by social services.  An autistic child can have many problematic issues, sensory problems (causing overload, distress and meltdowns) which if you don't know how to prepare for and avoid can cause the child immense distress and for the parent shock and stress.  The child may need to eat food in a certain order, or not have it touching on the plate, or find certain food textures abhorrent.  He may be hypersensitive to sound and meltdown or flee (potentially putting himself in great danger).  Autistic children frequently run off when out and won't listen to an adult calling.  There can be phobias present which again, can cause a flight reaction.  If the child is hyposensitive and not hypersensitive, they can seek sensory input and by doing so, put themselves in danger.

Autism often means high anxiety, and unless you know how to help the child (and anxiety in autism is not necessarily the same as it is in non-autistic (neurotypical or "NT") people) you will be dealing with the child's distress.

An autistic child may repetitively question, may not understand communications that are ambiguous, will have trouble understanding humour (so jokes and banter can cause distress or confusion) and can have real troubles with interpreting verbal instructions.

Autistic children usually have a lower sense of danger than NT children and it can be very low, so a child of 9 or 10 can have the level of danger awareness of a toddler.  They have trouble understanding peoples' intentions, hence making them very vulnerable to abuse from strangers and mate crime.

This is just the tip of the iceberg to give you an idea.  I would request that you are informed urgently of his diagnostic status, and given access to support groups and organisations and perhaps contact the NAS for advice.

A correct assessment takes a few hours involving the child/adult and someone who knows them - go to your GP to ask for a referral for an assessment or go private if you can afford it - it costs anything from about £400 - £800 - good luck