The Autism Echo Chamber: Birthday Party Edition

We had a belated^* birthday party for Charlie today. Since Charlie has Aspergers, a relatively mild condition on the Autism spectrum, he goes to a special school, and so two of his classmates, who are also on the spectrum, showed up, Gabriel and Calvin, as did our neighbor's kid (almost a member of the family) Jonathan, who is also on the spectrum.

It didn't help that Calvin also appeared to be ED, so not only was he acting out in ways that tended to set off kids on the spectrum, he was setting off everyone there, including the parents.

Charlie melted down twice, and Jonathan almost melted once once, as did Debbie (Jonathan's mom) and my wife. I was fortunately largely separated from this, because I was working on the cake and icing.


^*When you were born the day before Rosh Hashanah, scheduling a birthday party becomes a rather difficult thing.