Silver lining; your child won't remember your mistakes. Allow yourself to give up that guilt. There are kids out there who have it far worse on a daily basis, I assure you. Autism isn't your fault, the delay in diagnosis isn't your fault. Give yourself a break.

I would not feel guilty at all, most of us knew there was something going on but not sure what. I can honestly say I did t know what autism was until after early intervention first diagnosed my son. Then a few months later the nonverbal autism diagnosis for my daughter. To top all of that off my brother was officially diagnosed a few years after that and he was way into adulthood. We always knew he was different but didn't know what it was.

My point is that sometimes you just don't know, and since you can't turn back the clock anyway there is no reason to beat yourself up over it. Your time is better spent helping your child now so he can be the best he can be.

You did your part..and like you said the dr didn't even pick up on it...neither did ours..I still feel guilty like I'm not doing enough for her but in the end I can only do so much.

Sounds like you did your part by having evaluated. If the doctors couldn't tell he was on the spectrum, then how should you? If he is very high functioning then there may not be as many challenges for him so I'd be grateful for that. My daughter as diagnosed at age 3 and there's never been a doubt by anyone and I wish that were not the case.

As far as discipline goes, a kid on the spectrum may have more reasons for being a pain in the butt which we take into account but we still punish our daughter because she knows what is she's doing is wrong but she enjoys pushing our buttons. Autism doesn't make a kid an angel at least it doesn't for our daughter.

We all make mistakes and have regrets about things. With hindsight, we know the outcomes and learn about alternative choices but we make decisions on what we know at the time and don't have the luxury of waiting when to comes to our kids' development.