ot very kind to him at all," says his mother, Kathleen Santana.
When kids at school handed out invitations to birthday parties, Joseph never received any.
"In the beginning he just wasn't aware," Kathleen Santana says. "But now that he is getting older and learning more that that is happening, he is becoming more aware, and I think that is a hurtful situation for him."
Eventually, Santana decided to teach Joseph at home.
Alex has been doing OK at school. But his father, Hugh Lee, says his son is lonely.
"He wants to make friends with other kids. I think it's just a disability in him that he doesn't know how to," says Lee.
After many weeks of practice, Alex and Joseph are getting ready for a kind of final exam — at the Baltimore aquarium.
The boys spend a December afternoon at the Australia exhibit, checking out animals and asking each other questions about what they're seeing and what the animals are doing.
Their parents, meanwhile, are awarding points when the boys do well and taking points away when they don't.
At the end of the visit, the scores are tallied. Alex is told that he gets a lot of points for initiating conversations. But he also has a few deducted.
This is the sort of conversation Alex likes. It's about numbers.
"OK, so 18 minus 3 equals 15. So I have more than 10, and I have exactly 15. So a large prize," Alex happily says.
For kids like Alex, the stakes are high. They're more than smart enough to go to college, find jobs and live on their own.
But Freedman says his goal is to make sure they acquire the social skills to accomplish those things.