Enrolling preschooler in early child special education

My son (4 in december) is a bit of an odd duck. He was diagnosed with autism shortly after his 2nd birthday mainly because of a speech delay. A few weeks later we found out he had 47,xxy which explained all of his weird issues. Early intervention wasn't an option (small, poor county only offered it certain days of the week, husband and I worked an hour away and he went to a babysitter near our work). Fortunately his speech exploded a few months later. He was reevaluated at 2.5 by a different person, and they said he showed no signs of autism.Now at almost 4, his speech is on track or ahead for the things he says, but extremely difficult to understand. He drops consonant sounds in most of his words and seems to just make up sounds when he's repeating a word for the first time. He's had his hearing checked twice (i am half deaf) and showed no sign of difficulties. Mentally he's very bright, and a very good artist. He adds little specific details to his drawings that really shock me. And his memory is amazing. I don't bother with grocery lists because he can recite them (and ones from months ago).He's also a little ball of nerves and anxiety. His favorite toy is wipes, which he uses to clean everything and rub on his face and lips like he's stimming. He also rubs toys and the dogs ears on his lips. In the past few months he's also started picking at his skin. It started out just picking scabs but now he will pick at clean skin until it bleeds. He's also very recently started hitting himself. He picks his skin at all hours and I can't seem to stop it. He'll wake up in the morning with a new scab, usually over his lips. Then they don't heal for weeks. I can't even bandaid over them because he has sensitive skin and gets a rash, which makes everything worse.I'd like to get him evaluated by the school district and possibly placed in a program (we can't afford any preschool otherwise, but make way too much to qualify for head start). My husband is weary though. He was "not" diagnosed with autism around the same age because, at least where he was, being placed in special education or getting a diagnosis was a life sentence where your spend the next 12 years learning how to mop floors and wash windows. He's afraid that if our son goes into a program, he'll be stuck when he starts going to school for real. I don't think that's how it works, but I don't know. His problems are not really severe, but as a person with severe anxiety myself im definitely not equipped to deal with a 4 year old's. And to be honest I don't know how much of his behaviors are just learned from having an autistic father and an anxious mother. His younger brother was super early in speech and still has some autistic like quirks. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2fEdRx6