My nephew is 3 years old and depending on who you talk to, he's either got no autism, slight autism, or a full form of autism. In doing perliminary reasearch, autism isn't a single disease right? it's more of a condition that can be caused by a wide spectrum of causes. . it's rather complicated and diagnosis can vary. Do the symptoms improve/worsen over time or is it a day by day thing? I know it's very hard for my sister-in-law
According to my special-needs lawyer, the autism business right now is a get-rich scheme for MD's.
Nobody knows what causes autism.
While there are a lot of different elements to autism, the main thing you need to deal with is severity of disability. If it is possible for someone to say "no autism", then it isn't. disabling autism is obvious. My autism parent support group used to use the "poop on the ceiling" test to figure out which families would fit into our group. If you don't know what the poop on the ceiling thing is, your nephew isn't all that disabled - and be thankful for that.
Symptoms do change over the years, but it's not a day by day thing.
My son was born with seizures and other issues, and after a lot of intense testing, was diagnosed in the hospital with autism etc. He's the youngest of 4 and it was obvious that he wasn't like his older siblings.
He was born in 1989 and I've watched the autism field change since then.
I can see that dealing with autism might be be difficult these days - when my son was diagnosed, there was no question about what he had. And no questions about what kind of treatment to persue. There wasn't any real treatment then, except to institutionalize him. My best friend has a down syndrome son, and we have a lot in common. But my autistic son has developed into a somewhat functioning adult - and her son never will.
Anyway, best to your nephew and his family. Love him exactly the way he is.
Edit to add: No, my son is not on SSDI. We made the decision when he was 18 - which is when it's easier here to get on SSDI - because the schools help with it.
We figured that he could either learn to deal with SSDI - which is complicated; or he could learn to deal with some part of the real world. It's working for him so far.