Guest with Autism

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(Or should it be "Autistic Guest"? Which is correct?)

Anyway...

Tomorrow for lunch we are having two families over for lunch. One of them has two teens. The son, aged 19, we know is mildly autistic. The daughter is about 16 and also has special needs. I can't specify any further because I've never met them, but my mom and their mom used to be neighbours or something like that. They've recently refound each other. The other family has two young girls, like aged 1 1/2 and a month old baby.

As basically the only person in this house with any working knowledge of autism, what could I do to... I don't know, I guess help the family with the 'challenged' teenagers out? I don't expect the toddler will be loud, if noise is probably a concern. She is well-behaved.

Thank you!

If they start to show signs of having problems (e.g., reacting badly to being around a bunch of people they don't know), maybe you could take them (one at a time, if possible) aside and help calm them down.

When everyone arrives, mention this to their parents--they'll probably be very grateful.

I don´t understand. If they had any problems wouldn´t the parents deal with it?

As long as they're not put under any psychological pressure (liked being pushed to do something they're not comfortable doing), or faced with overwhelming stimuli (I find when friends and family get together in a group, people tend to talk over each other and get rather loud), they should be fine. Just keep the noise at a reasonable level and the activity fairly calm and they should be fine.

Oh of course, but wouldn't it help out the parents too? Like if there is an irrational fear about something in the house that we can remove...

I think the other family knows about them; we're all from the same church and the father of these teenagers was the guest speaker last sunday and he mentioned his kids as part of the introduction.

Our typical lunch-with-guests is main course, dessert, and then depending on the company, either 'us' kids will play Wii and the adults will talk or there will be some form of board game involved. Generally not too stressful unless you're playing with competitive folk.

Thanks, everyone, for your input!

Autism is too diverse in its expression to really know what one particular person prefers. You should just ask the parents if their kids need anything special.

The one thing you probably can't go wrong with is giving the kids permission not to socialize, like letting them go watch TV or something of that sort. Unless the parents want to push them, but that's another story.

uhhh maybe not approach the situation as if they're gunna need help and act normal???? that might be nice for them.