Social Gathering :

Great! Another Social gathering invites with capital S, where people spontaneously come together share food and chat while their children play games and tell stories.

As a neurotypical mother person, I never processed an invitation to a social event; contrary, I use to love parties conferences and weddings. But as a mother of an autistic child, I need to be provided with the information explicitly of the event to be able to prepare him for it. So a schedule and a link to the venue aren’t enough for me!!

Whenever you think of something as” too much detail” than Remember my autistic child.

The first thing you can do is to provide information in advance of the event illustrated with map and descriptions making sure to give details about parking, stairs, lifts and accessible toilets. Also, pictures of everywhere people might go during the event including information that might be relevant for sensory sensitivities ( noise, light, smells, etc.)

Remember to specify where a “quiet&sensory” room can be found, doesn’t need to be fancy, a small, uncluttered room will do!

Include at least one activity, which caters different abilities to create an accommodating social interaction for all. Often cognitive needs get ignored when planning accessibility; without them, many autistic people will silently not attend the event.

Seems like a lot of work? Well if you don’t do it, I will have to do it for you. But remember, it will be than my event, not yours!