Crass behaviour

PRINTMISS, Thanks for your good wishes. Our organisation sounds similar to yours and grew from a need for young adults to have somewhere to go to after full time schooling (once they have left at 18/19 many had few opportunities and spend hours at home becoming withdrawn and depressed). Some who come to us are now well into their 40s and with ageing parents need somewhere for themselves AND as a sort of daytime respite for their carers.
I will be honest and say that when I first started to consider this I was terrified as I had all the wrong ideas but was just drawn to the charity (they run a shop that sells the creations made in the craft workshop as well as lots of donated fabrics and haberdashery so it attracted me on a purely mercenary level).
Everyone connected with the charity is lovely and our clients are such a varied group that you just cant help getting involved. I hope I can do them justice.

Sorry, Butty I got carried away there; there is never any excuse for people who behave so badly, and I think things are getting better, mainly because there are folk like you who care enough and want to get autism and all the other 'special needs' properly understood and accepted. Ignorant people can hurt without realising the hurt - no excuse though.

Butty you have every reason to be upset, but this woman is just plain dumb, e.g. I don't know a lot about autism, but it wouldn't occur to me to blame something that is missing on the nearest autistic child, so how she made that connection is beyond me. What is wrong with some people!?

Butty, what a very silly woman she must be. Ill-informed and remarkably rude, as well.
I can only imagine how angry and disappointed you might be feeling because of this. I worked, for quite a long time, with adults who were autistic, and discovered that what I saw, was what I got. No deviousness and complete honesty from all angles. I hope the rest of your day is sweeter, Butty, and that you can forget about this person and her utter ignorance soon. She IS simply ignorant.

HildaW I do so hope you enjoy your charity work. I have a great regard for people with learning disabilities, and for parents who care for their children (not forgetting siblings, who so often get over-looked). You will see from my blog that our son is now well grown, and lives away from home, but ever since he was three, and until we moved ten years ago, I was involved with parents and people with 'special needs'. I was in charge of a 'Gateway Club' - a Mencap associated club for young and older people with varying degrees of learning disabilities. Some of them I had watched grow from young children into pleasant, polite, and really thoughtful adults with no malice. We were well known in the community and enjoyed all sorts of activities, some never even thought managable but with help from lots of friends achieved, others best not talked about. Oh! I do miss them.

Butty your answer was spot on. There's so much ignorance out there. My oldest GS is nearly 7 but terribly shy. I've just come off the phone to my DiL's mother, who I consider to be a 'butty short of a picnic' anyway and I'm steaming. She kept taking digs at my GS saying he's 'arrogant' and 'not interested in anything' and 'always demanding attention'. Whereas the truth is he's very shy, interested in nature and all things scientific and so kind and caring towards his little girls cousins (her granddaughter). What gives people the right to make personal comments about children we care for and about whom they know next to nothing

Butty, please try to see this as an idiotic simplistic remark not worth even bothering with. They were just showing their bad manners and lack of insight into a highly complicated subject. Don't stew too long...its just not worth it.
I have very recently started to help out at a charity that helps adults with mild to severe learning difficulties enjoy themselves. Its very early days yet and I have so much to learn but I have already realised that the term 'Special needs' that was thought to be so much more acceptable also causes a lot of problems. the very word 'special' now makes people snigger if you use it in its original context. You just cannot describe anyone or any action as special without someone thinking you are trying to be ironic. People are people, they are capable of so much - its just some have a few more limits than others. I might be 'normal' but I cant play a musical instrument and for many years could not drive!! One of the young women who come to us has a delightful insight on the world, she is gentle in her manner yet transparently honest in all her dealings with people. I know many so called normal folks who are devious and twisted and capable of being deeply unpleasant.
If we can stop using labels, try to be as inclusive as possible (although I appreciate that sometimes the added support can be expensive and complicated) and then perhaps a few more people will learn not to be so judgemental.

Ignorant woman, Butty. Don't feel sad for long - she's the one who needs to get her head round why she might make sweeping assumptions like that?

Do people realise how hurtful they can be? And how children might gauge such crass behaviour for themselves?

If only I could have lent my little grandson to you for the party - one of his friends is autistic. She can look a little left out sometimes, but if anyone makes an inappropriate comment to her, M bristles and shouts 'you can't play with us!' His mum did have to have words with him when he stalked off with friend and cricket bat, which actually belonged to the offending teenager who made the ill-informed comment. He's nearly five.

That is horrible Butty. You have every right to feel cross. Not in the same league, but I am getting more and more frustrated that everyone tells me my autistic grandson will be very gifted at something. Er no.
I was reading on Mumsnet that one mother of an autistic child is so fed up with being asked what his special talent is that she says, "he can fly"....

Your answer was bang on, butty. Have a good growl.