Am browsing and found your posting from last year. My son is 8. He has autism but actually, I think of it as Aspergers. He attends mainstream school (with lots of help - his concentration is dreadful unless it's on his chosen subject!) and he appears "normal" unless he is trying to interact in a social sense. My ex-husband behaved very badly toward me when my son was first diagnosed (age 4). It has taken 4 years for him to see that there IS a problem and it's not ME being a bad mother! My husband, in my opinion (having read so much and observed Aspies at first hand) has many of the same qualities as his son. I think it's the social isolation that's awful for these children and carers. He is in his own little world much of the time and cannot access "friends", or only marginally and for short periods of time. I wish I could do it for him but I can't.