AS kid trying to be friends with non-verbal or more severe

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I originally posted this in the friendships forum, but was told it should probably go here.

I have a 12yr old who still takes speech therapy and is probably at an 8yr old level, however, he is at least verbal. We have been hanging out with other kids with autism in the hopes that he can make some better friends, as he is constantly bullied by the "normal" kids. One particular boy and him are finally playing more together, although his friend is almost non-verbal. I have heard my son a few times ask him "what did you say?" and of course, I do NOT want my son to be rude, because really, there are plenty of people who do the same to him and I know it hurts his feelings. I am trying to help both my son and this boy so that they can be better friends.

One of the things I have learned thanks to this site is to allow him to have his special interests and find other kids that also share the same interests. That has helped MY son greatly. However, I notice that with many of the parents of the other kids, especially those who are non-verbal or more severe, the parents constantly stop them from talking about their special interests or even playing with whatever their special interest is in front of others. My son actually many times will tell the parents "don't worry, that's what they like to talk about, it's ok"?but the other parents get offended when my autistic son says such things and yet I agree with him to a large extent. I continue to find friends for MY son with similar interests and have taught him to be nice to others, but it really doesn't help much if the other parents are constantly telling their kids to not talk about X, when that is the only thing these kids talk about or gets them to focus. To me it seems that is a way to get them engaged with other kids, as I teach my kiddo to listen to others and ask questions, etc.

What things can I teach my son to do/say, etc. so that he can either communicate better with this other young boy or to ensure that the boy does not feel bad if he is not understood. I would really appreciate the input of those who were non-verbal before or still are as to how my son can have a relationship with this young boy and others since they do seem to have a great time together and I know they ALL would benefit greatly from at least having one true friend.

I don't have experience with the speech issues portion, so I'll leave that to others.

When you are setting up a playdate for your son, it might be good to ask upfront whether the parents are ok with the boys spending their time together focusing on their special interests. At least that might help frame the playdate in the other parents' minds to allow it to be more free flowing, or help you steer away from parents who will squash the fun.

I have an issue with those parents. They seem like they are assuming their child doesn't understand anything. How do they even KNOW what he likes?! I'm serious. They are treating him as if he's a baby and he might fully understand everything! If they are playing together, and the other boy is doing activities with him, this is a GOOD thing. For all anyone knows, your son might understand non-verbal communication that the boy is attempting. This has happened before and parents have no idea.

Also, him asking "What did you say" might not be rude at all. He might have actually heard something and thought it was his friend. OR, as I said, he might actually be communicating with him! Possibly not verbally, but it completely makes sense. I have asked a child before what they said. They didn't verbally say anything, and they weren't autistic, but they were trying to tell me something with their hands.

If anything, I feel like the parents are making their child worse. If you were non-verbal, and your parents took away your playmate, that would hurt very badly.

Advice: Is it possible to get your son to play a challenging game with his friend to communicate? Example: Say it's a game and that no one can talk. The challenge is to tell his new friend information about his interest without talking. This also might help facilitate information exchanging.

I agree with Zette and think that you should probably have a talk with the parent when you schedule the playdate to find out what ideal topics of play might be. Let the other parent know what your son's special interest is, etc. A parent who gets irked when a playmate contradicts parental instructions might still be open to telling the child is it OK for a particular interaction after getting a heads up from the parent of said playmate in advance.

This way the parent can tell the child in advance in a way that does not contradict prior teachings about not boring others with special interests.

In addition the parent may be attempting to teach NT rules of engagement and does not understand that your child is not playing by those rules either.

"It is OK, I love this topic. he can talk about it as much as he wants." in NT language may mean "I will allow your child to talk to me about his interest even though I think it is weird and boring because I am a nice person." The parent may think b/c your child is more verbal that he uses NT speech like this.

Note: I in no way condone of the type of parenting that would forbid a child from talking about special interests. One can teach manners, taking turns, flexibility etc. without instituting a freaking ban. I am only giving advice on how to deal with certain parents assuming their attitude as an unchangeable constant in the equation.

My 4yr son was considered pre verbal until about 7 months ago. Now his speech is stilled delayed but considered at a 3 yr level with major pragmatic issues. He never was upset playing with verbal kids. I would explain to the verbal kids that he just didn't talk much and either the kids were cool w that or they weren't. If a kid asked him what he said he would repeat it and if that didn't work he would usually ignore it. However, he has a very laid back temperament, most kids might get frustrated. He was just happy to play around kids. Now that he is speaking, there are other HFA kids in his class who are less verbal and some who are much more verbal. He doesn't seem to care whether kids can talk or not. They just play at their own level of development and speech and seem to know how to work around different levels of their playmates.

You didn't say if the little boy was offended, just that you were worried he might be. I wouldn't assume he was offended. If your son was asking a genuine unloaded question and his friend seemed to be fine with it, assume he is fine with it. You might want to explain to your son that his friend doesn't speak/or much yet, so that he need to try to find other ways to play. I would just try to facilitate more non verbal play around common interest. Legos, games that don't have too many words, soccer or some other ball game, video games. I am sure the other kids mom is very happy he has found a more verbal friend who can help him work on his speech while playing. I might talk to the mom though and make sure she isn't offended. One hopes that parents of other ASD kids understand, but that isn't always a given.

I don't know what to say about the special interest. I agree, talk to the other parents. I am guessing that they are so used to limiting special interest talk in public that they forget to turn it off. I embrace my son's special interests and use them to help work with him. However he is 4 and not horribly talkative. I could imagine there might be a day when I will long for the days we had to pry a word out of him

Bottom line is that different families have different rules.

They may not allow their kids to slide down the banister, and you may think that is the stupidest rule ever. They may not "do" Santa Claus for their kids, and you may think that is the stupidest thing ever. They may be vegetarians, and you may think that is the stupidest thing ever.... But it doesn't matter because just as you get to decide how to raise your kids, they get to decide how to raise their kids. That goes for how they deal with autism too. That's something you should be teaching your son, because he presumably wants the right to live his life how he wants to live it, right? Also, you don't know why they're putting away the toy when your son's around. What immediately came to my mind is that maybe their child is very possessive of that toy, so they're worried that should your son reach for it or whatever, their child would slap him or start screaming or something. So maybe it's more damage-control than a problem with special interests in general...

In terms of parents of severely autistic children not liking special interests... maybe we're picturing different levels of "severe" or something, but that is really not my experience at all. I have 2 kids who are considered pretty LF- extremely minimal communication skills. Most of my friends' kids are the same way. And we all throw a party whenever our kids are doing something with purpose that isn't destructive. It doesn't matter what the heck it is- it isn't poo-smearing- so we're happy! And if it's LANGUAGE can we PLEASE do it over and over?

Thanks to all for your suggestions.

Just a few clarifications. I do understand that every parent is different and they do have a right to deal with their child or autism as they see fit. My issue is that if a child is talking to my son about X and their parent keeps telling them not to talk about their X special interest, while my son doesn't even mind, then at some point my son doesn't even talk to the child about Y (my son's special interest). Why? Because my son can see that when he talks about Y the child doesn't care or respond, so he has learned that he needs to listen to others as well, etc. So then if my son says nothing and the child says nothing, the other parents can't say that my son is not engaging their child in play when the reality is that they have only been told what NOT to talk about, but not told what to talk about. And even if we tell them, well, you must talk about movies, if they have no interest in movies (just like telling an adult MALE to talk about makeup), at some point they both become silent and well, that's the end of the interaction.

For example, if we go to a beach or the pool, I take toys that my son can use with the other kids to engage them in play. This is how I was able to get my son to engage with typical kids when he was non-verbal, but these parents just expect their kids to "talk and play" without offering them another option such as pool toys, etc. but just throwing them all in a pool. I think that it is already difficult for our kids to think outside of their special interests and if we don't at least give them options, they will go silent and just play on their own.

Again, thanks for your ideas?I'll try to work these in and also talk to the parents.

I just wanted to echo what everyone else has said about talking to the parents. Everyone on this road is looking for ways to support their children, and they may be more open to your ideas than you think. They may have just been self-conscious because your child is higher functioning. So, I'd invite them out for coffee and maybe introduce your ideas as part of an overall brainstorming session about how to help your children grow socially. If you work it right, you might even be able to convince them that your approach was THEIR idea. Good luck!

It's interesting because my autistic daughter is friends with a mildly disabled girl at school who's mother is not very happy about their friendship. There's not much I can do to socially engineer outings or playdates because the mother (and father) ignore me when I try and speak to them. In that respect it's nice you support your son, just be careful not to view it as charity, I'm sure both boys derive benefit from their relationship.


Tried this but without much success. Part of the problem is the three or four autism groups I took my daughter to had "no" girls. The boys Vs girls thing plus the fact most of the boys are fairly verbal Aspies makes it hard for my daughter to make friends in these groups.

Maybe the parents can let the kids play however they want without having to monitor what they say and do unless they are doings like running into traffic or setting things on fire, etc. When I was little during the verbal or non-verbal phase, I wouldn't have cared if another kid said what did you say to me or most other things, but I would have been annoyed by adults trying to interfere with my playing by myself or with others.