What has happened with Theo?

I don’t know much about Autism at all – I was listening to Coast-to-Coast radio very late last night on the radio and of course, they had the subject du jour  "Health Care" as their topic.  A father of twin 15 year old boys that both have autism was saying what it medically cost a year for him to raise the children.  The father said that one of the boys has never progressed past children’s "pull-ups" (i.e., potty learning stage), and has to wear a helmet to keep from hurting himself.  The other twin son can verbally communicate on a much more advanced level, can articulate his ideas, goes to a school and is somewhat social; so I guess there are different states of the impairment.  Theo must be in a more advanced phase as he can communicate and is social. 

Either that or like you said, the writer’s are moving away from autism for Theo’s character.  It’s really too bad that if that  is what the writer’s are doing and have gotten lazy because it’s too difficult a character to write for as Theo grows up, because it brings Autism in the forefront of dialog and more understanding.

A friend has a son who’s autistic.  He was a slow talker when he was younger, acually was over 5 years old and wouldn’t communicate. He was hard to potty train even at 5-6 years old.  Today he’in his mid-late 20’s is a good conversationalist, knows a lot about computers and drives a car. 

if Philip can get a totally new face and physique and grow a new leg, I guess Theo can "outgrow" autism.  <extreme sarcasm>

Autism is a spectrum disorder encompassing many vary degrees of severity.  I have a son with Asperger’s which is on the autism spectrum.  He’s extremely intelligent and completely capable of carrying on a normal conversation when he wants to (and moreso with those he’s comfortable with) – think nerdy computer genius type.  His main issues lie in the area of social skills (although he was also late to potty train, is resitant to change and has some other typical autistic characteristics).  I have friends with children who are more severely autistic who, with early interventions and therapies, are functioning at or very near the level of my son.  So I don’t find it at all difficult to believe that Theo could be making great progress in his communication skills.  And it makes perfect sense that Abe and Lexie would be doing everything possible to make that happen.