Jimmy's so smart

We were sitting on the couch and we drew a big hand on his Magna Doodle and counted the fingers off, one through five. Jimmy took the little pen and wrote - in the scribble that is his emerging handwriting - 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 on each finger. He is smart and tries so hard. At back to school night, his teacher gave us a list of all the different criteria of autism. It is so hard for me to believe that he is likely to test with an IQ below 70. It's not that his IQ will actually be that low, but without suitable language to express his thoughts and ideas, we don't know what he knows, what he understands.