#WonderfulWednesday: Do autistic children have friends?

This week's wonderful Wednesday share is from Catie over at An Imperfect Mum and her lovely post 'Do autistic children have friends?' It's a beautifully written piece about her son and his challenges finding, keeping and understanding friends and friendship.

What I really think is wonderful is Catie's underlying assumptions. True, there are possibly stereotypical autistic people who prefer to be alone but not all do and it's much more about how instead we as society can adjust to allow, neigh, encourage them to participate in whatever activities they wish.. including friendship.

Our son talks about all his class mates as being his 'friends' but we know that's probably not really the case. That doesn't mean he doesn't choose who he spends his time with. He happily admits his dad is his best friend (lucky dad) and he actively misses him when he's not around for any reason at all.

Playing with peers definitely happens. Play dates have the difficulty of what to do with siblings if invited to play dates. First visits usually require breaking in and that's difficult with a non verbal five year old and a toddler in tow. Plus, Anthony needs to be invited round somewhere or want to have someone round himself which doesn't happen often.

We help Anthony by introducing him to new things that are more age appropriate for common ground. This is providing him with the opportunity to see what he enjoys and it turns out that he loves marvel Superheros and Formula 1.  Truth is he'd probably still be into In The Night Garden if we didn't help him along.

Catie picks up on a common interests theme in her post along with her own sons perceptions. It's a lovely insight that proves autistic people can want friends too. If you haven't read it already, go over to An Imperfect Mum for a look.

Links
Our blog - Our terribly truthful son
Our blog - To the boy who showed an interest in my son's special interest

External
An Imperfect Mum - Do autistic children have friends?