Hi, I'm a 29 year old Mum to two little boys aged 21 months and 4 years, and our eldest has just been diagnosed with AS.
Thing is, although I can see in some ways why they may have come to this conclusion (after 2 years of so called diagnosis) I am not happy at all.
They sent us away with plenty of literature to read, websites to visit, but much of it doesn't seem to apply to my son.
The main traits they were 'concerned' about (and which we also deemed a little different as parents) were:
His obsession with buses and bus numbers
Inability to dress himself properly
Eating with his fingers and not cutlery, difficulties in holding pens, switching hands around, etc.
Prefers to eat the same foods over and over, won't try anything new, lots of problems with retching at foods if they are 'different' or when watching babies, eat!
Prefers to be in his underwear or naked (!)
Fear of loud noises (including a mortal fear of hand dryers), doesn't like hand or hair washing
He was also slow to point, clap, wave, and started talking at 21 months (although he never stops now)
Repetitive behaviours, such as endlessly talking about the same thing, requesting the same thing (such as for us to draw him buses over and over)
Difficult time sharing toys, attachment to inanimate objects (such as not wanting to put things down, getting attached to things like stones (which funnily enough I do too!)
Horrific tantrums and violent towards me, general bad behaviour, often can't sit still
Copying language from Thomas stories and including it in every day conversation, out of the blue
Sometimes he sounds like a little old man when he talks, using large words, yet he struggles to put sentences together generally
I do many of these types of things too. About speaking, although I started speaking at the expected times, it is not nearly as natural for me as for other people around me, and it exhausts me. I also used big words, but would have trouble with making sentences through speaking. There are times for me that I can't speak at all. Just a heads up, since oftentimes the professionals ignore the fact that just because you don't have a speech delay doesn't mean speech will be 100% reliable. In elementary school, prior to my diagnosis especially, lunch ladies would yell at me for not responding to them (when I was trying to put the words together in my head first) and would grab my shoulder when I didn't respond to my name. Fortunately for me, I had limited body awareness and so my instincts to flail my arms out and hit whatever grabbed me didn't land me into punching any teachers.
The thing is, that most literature talks about lack of eye contact, problems with imaginitive play and making friends, etc, but our son doesn't really have this difficulty.
There's a lot of stuff in the "autism literature" that I can't relate to at all. Sometimes it's because traits aren't universal (such as with eye contact), and other times it's because the literature is just plain wrong (such as the ideas that autistics lack empathy, are locked inside ourselves, that we suffer behind a "veil" of autism). I am good with making friends and being social, just that my ways of socializing are different from the norm - this was no longer a barrier when I transferred to a different high school where most students are accepting of differences, and I have good friends today with whom I regularly socialize. I hardly ever make eye contact, though, and I spend a significant portion of time rocking back and forth.
Before he started nursery he was very clingy and unwilling to play with other children, but these days he is a VERY social little boy. We have never had any problem with eye contact though. He has friends at nursery, loves to play and talk to other children and adults, and is always showing off his latest bus book or thomas story. Just today in a bookshop he walked up to a man looking at Thomas books and said 'excuse me, could you find a Percy book for me please?', looking the man straight in the eyes. Sometimes he is distracted by other things when I am asking him questions, but aren't many children? I call this his 'selective hearing'!
I love Thomas! I also have been told I have "selective hearing". Mainly this is when my name is called and I don't notice. The main theory I've heard is that it's hard (especially when absorbed in an interesting activity) sometimes to differentiate between the background noise and when someone is calling for your attention.
He is exceptionally affectionate with me. Lots of kisses and cuddles, tells me he loves me, loves to me cuddle up with him in bed, says he misses me when I am not there, etc. Adores his brother (when they are not arguing!).
Sometimes I was outwardly affectionate, other times not (for instance, there have been many times I am uncomfortable with hugging - not because I have any emotional distancing from my parents, just because sometimes it is sensorarily too much).
He doesn't line up his toys (any more), in fact, he prefers to make a huge mess! He says that he hates it tidy. If he sees things out of place in a shop he often likes to tidy up though, but its far from obsessive. He also does have an imagination, although much of it seems to revolve around buses and Thomas. Oh, and he talks endlessly. Morning until evening, non stop chatter and questions. Drives me bonkers sometimes!
We are almost 100% sure that my husband has AS too, and as a child he didn't want to socialise at all. On his first day of nursery he stood in a corner and refused to join in. This continued until he was a teenager and wanted to please everybody, craving attention.
My dad is also on the spectrum (my mom is not though). When he was little, he would rock back and forth repeating "Mommy come here! Mommy come here!" (guess which of the three kids in my family echolalically imitated this...) When I was about 4 or 5 I was known to say: "I am BATMAN!" which was a phrase I commonly repeated.
Is it possible for true AS sufferers to be extremely social, loving, crave attention and friends, yet have other social difficulties? I guess we will see more clearly how he develops when he is older. For now though I am not happy with the diagnosis, although I know something isn't quite right.
So sorry for waffling, on my very first post too! I do go on a bit...
While I wouldn't characterize myself as suffering because of being autistic, yes, it certainly is possible! Probably a lot of the doubt about the diagnosis stems from the stereotypical ways that autistics are portrayed in media, and described by scientists and other professionals. I myself doubted tremendously my diagnosis of Asperger's in my teenage years, even though by then I was aware of my rocking, intermittent speech difficulties, the greatly longer time it took me to learn self-help skills, my sensory sensitivities (my mom, to this day, can't put on a perfume or lotion or use a shampoo or soap or landry detergent that irritates me without me noticing it and coughing and needing to leave the room 12 hours after the initial use of the scent).
Lots of other stuff, too, but not really necessary for me to describe every autistic trait I have. Looking back at when I was in early elementary school, in fact, if you didn't know that I had the ability to speak would probably have guessed right away, even if you weren't familiar with the fact that someone can be highly verbal and still on the spectrum (I myself am not well at ease with language, particularly speech). In fact, I'm pretty sure that the only reason I wasn't diagnosed until much later was because I was known to speak and advanced in math (though my handwriting lagged far behind my peers). Nowadays, though, there is more information available to schools and psychologists, so more people are being diagnosed earlier. Me, though, they thought I was just being naughty. 
If I haven't mentioned it already in this thread, I do have a number of good friends. In elementary and junior high school, however, I was seriously bullied. The most important thing you can do is to check up frequently and monitor what's going on at the school. It's best to ask direct and specific questions, such as "Were the other kids nice or were they mean today?" instead of something like "How was your day today?" The worst day of my life that I was bullied, I answered the latter question with "Great" because that was my scripted response (though the variation of "Fine" was also in circulation). Schools can be quick to let such bullying slide because they believe in such nonsense as "It builds character" or "They're exaggerating" or "That's what you have to expect when you act so different".
If schools ever give you or your kid that kind of crap, then the next time you talk to them, bring a copy of the state/national law regarding a safe educational environment. My schools have distributed planners to each student every year, and in the front it includes some of the education code and the school rules. If that's the case for you, it'd be good to highlight every violation and show it to the people responsible. I'm not trying to be negative; I'm just trying to be realistic. The most important thing to emphasize if bullying is happening like that is that IT'S NOT HIS FAULT for being different, and that it's not a personal failing of his that results in the bullying - he isn't "getting what's coming to him". It's a failing of the bullies for being narrow-minded and/or violent. And it's a failing of the school if they refuse to address it properly.
On a side note, I personally had many tantrums as a kid, and would lash out, usually at myself by banging my head but also by throwing things, or hitting a family member. Sometimes when I would hit or throw an object, I would accidentally harm my mom or dad or sibling. I just want you to remember, that it's not a personal thing - it's just that we need better ways to control ourselves and redirect our anger, and while such actions need punishing, it's important to emphasize that you don't think of him as an awful person because of it, and it helps to go in depth of strategies to control anger and frustration (those stress-squeezing things can be a real help; so can punching bags and pillows). It helped encourage me to use these strategies when my parents demonstrated using them themselves, and encouraging me to try along with them.
Hope my perspective helped any!
These particular yoghurts had been on special offer, so I'd bought loads of them and couldn't face eating them all myself!