This is a Curtis journal entry from the Fall of 2010, approximately one year ago. An entire notebook filled with "I'm Journaling in my Journal, I'm Journaling in my Journal, I'm Journaling in my Journal, I'm Journaling in my Journal" which is how he spent his reflective journal time at the beginning of last school year. These pages were almost hypnotic as you flipped through them. An entire notebook of this sentence.Throughout his first grade year, his journal writings improved and became accurate run-on sentences detailing an account of his day. Today, a few months away from eight years old, he is capable of recounting all aspects of his day when he journals and regularly writes kindhearted and funny notes to his friends and family during personal writing time.
All that is to say this. Early intervention therapy works. I've heard numerous stories of parents who ignore signs of autism because they don't wish to acknowledge the affliction for whatever reason. Families who want so badly to believe their child doesn't have autism that they will look the other way entirely and pass off all odd behaviors.
Maybe the parent believes it would be socially stigmatizing to acknowledge autism in their child or maybe they just don't believe in it, like it's the Easter Bunny. Maybe they feel too busy to deal with it. Maybe they are too lazy to deal with it.  Early intervention started at 2 years old but it is every bit as intensive as Curtis approaches eight. I'm sure there are a variety of reasons parents ignore autistic behaviors in young children who are withdrawn, confused, and exhibiting other behaviors worthy of being acknowledged and assessed.
But it's a great disservice to the child to ignore these signs. It's not good enough to sit back and hope for the best or to try and place a square peg in a round hole by mainstreaming a child who may have high functioning autism or Asperger Syndrome. These children usually require alternate learning methods and anything short of that could be futile. We know that Curtis requires special teaching methods to succeed but by and large, through trial and error we find the methods best suiting to his way of learning. Personal pride should be a very distant second to improving the welfare of your kid. 

Greg, Dad