As a kid, I was screened for autism, -

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As a kid in the mid 80s, I was screened for some possible problems as my motor coordination was a mediocre, and I did not talk much to other kids (but talked about my interests including dinosaurs) and this was by a school psychologist and he felt I was "normal". DSM-IV included asperger's after my childhood passed, but I was NOT identified as autistic as a child.

Lucky.

I was screened for something..but whatever it was, they never told me.

I wish I was. I barely talked in school. The teachers just thought I was sexually abused. I wasn't.

I was and I talked about it and got bullied for talking about it...but that is off topic...

I went through a battery of tests administered by my school district throughout my school years. In elementary school (1985-91), no fewer than two counselors noted that I showed "autistic" traits, but I was verbal, and the period of time I lost speech as a toddler was dismissed by doctors as (temporary) deafness attributed to the many ear infections I had when I was young.

Despite the fact that I was not labeled as autistic, or anything else for that matter, as a child (I would be diagnosed officially with OCD at 16, and would not know what Asperger's Syndrome was until I was 23), I was still placed in special education as "behavior disordered" (in other words, the "bad" kids, the ones who, as the years went by, attended school only between stints at juvenile hall) because the school professionals felt that I was enough of a distraction to a normal learning environment to be segregated - things like being unable to "just ignore" students tormenting me because of my differences (I would automatically start crying in this and other stressful situations, something I could not control), my daydreaming when I should have been focusing on my studies, my difficulties with group situations, so on and so forth.

Pensieve, you bring up an interesting point. My assessors initially believed that, because of my lack of eye contact and unwillingness to be touched, I may have been a victim of abuse of some sort, which was totally not true. To this day, I still have difficulty with eye contact, and it's hard for me to accept being touched... but I know why now.

My mother took me to a doctor a couple of times, in the 80s (1987 or so I think). She told the doctor her idea of "mild autism", since I showed traits, but they weren't severe. Not being well known at the time, the doctors brushed it off.

I grew up for the most part being teased by most kids, and always having problems. It was recommended that I be held back from the first grade, just out of kindergarten! I wasn't "socially mature" enough they thought. In the third grade I had been assigned to visit a councilor, who was supposed to help me with whatever problems I had. I had to visit her once a week. I had something like that for a short while in the 4th grade too.

My parents eventually started having me go to an "anger management" class, which I went to once a week. I thought that ridiculous, I didn't have an anger management problem. At least to me I didn't. Maybe I did! I had also seen a few psychiatrists, whom I gave a very hard time. I kept tricking them and made it difficult for them to get anything out of me. For the most part they kept asking me a stupid question that I couldn't answer to begin with! They kept asking me "what I've been angry at my whole life." The answer at that time was NOTHING! Why did they assume I was an angry child?

Yeah, plenty of problems with plenty of signs of SOMETHING and yet I come out of it at the age of 24 with absolutely NO diagnosis for anything. I don't plan on being diagnosed for anything either.