Appointment with the Development Pediatrician

Today has been a loonnggg day.  We left at 8am to get to the appointment at 9, then we waited and waited and waited some more.  Finally, over an hour late the Dr. came in!  Then we talked, for a good 1 1/2 hrs, then she filled out paperwork for another 1/2 hr.  The results of the appointment, in a nutshell, is that she is going to re-evaluate in 4 months.  During this time she wants him in a structured preschool a few days a week.  He needs to learn how to sit at a table with his peers to do activities, eat and do "imaginative play".  She is hoping that between doing this and the med he has been taking (which has tremendously helped his anxiety), we will see a totally different, social  kid.  Right now she is delaying Dx, but will go over his developmental progress again in Jan. and if he still isn't interacting with kids, making better eye contact, ect. we will be looking at a Dx on the Autism Spectrum.  She suggested that for meals we strap him in to a sturdy highchair and force him to sit at the table to watch us eat.  I'm not sure that's going to work out since the reason we stopped using the high chair in the first place was because he would repeatedly bang his head so hard against the back of it that it would almost tip - but we will give it a try.  If  he doesn't start eating better he will need to begin feeding therapy again. We also need to attempt to stop the obsessive circle drawing by telling him to color or that we are drawing other shapes instead.  We told her we all do this already, but will continue to try.  His speech is great though, at about the 36 month level - which to me is awesome considering he is cleft affected!!!  So, long story short, there are "red flags" that would lead her to believe he has high functioning ASD.  This is not a surprise to us, we know he is "wired" completely different than the other kids.  Hopefully being in a structured preschool setting will help him how other kids eat, color and interact!