Since my youth, I have had a variety of experiences in social groups. Some have been designed especially for people with special needs, while others have been the “normal” kind.

When I was thirteen, my mom enrolled me in the social groups at Youth Services in Saskatoon, which is now Child and Youth Services. This organization was set up for youths between the ages of 12 and 19. During my Grade 8 year, I attended a group in which kids went bowling on Thursday afternoons, then they met back at Youth Services for an “identity group”. Before attending, I thought the identity group was going to be a time for the kids to get together and visit, and so did my mom, and I was really looking forward to it. I didn’t have any friends my own age, except for a boy named Mark, who lived in San Antonio, Texas, where my grandparents lived (and where my grandpa still lives). I could only see Mark when my mom and I went down to San Antonio during the Christmas holidays. The rest of the time, we corresponded through letter writing.

Anyway, the identity group was not at all as we thought. The adult counsellor stayed in the room with us and we were taking turns talking to her about a certain topic (that day’s topic was “why we were here”). I kept thinking she’d leave the room, but it turned out we did this the whole time, all year. How disappointing that the identity group was regimented! I had come here to visit with the other kids, not to talk to the counsellor!

The biggest problem that year, however, was that I didn’t really have any peers in the social group. I was still a young boy and the other kids looked like big teenagers. To make matters worse, many of the kids were the rough sort, who hang out in washrooms and cuss on the streets in the middle of the night. Some were even violent. On one occasion, in November of 1982, at the start of the identity group, a fourteen-year-old boy tried to attack one of the counsellors, and pinned her into the wall. This kid often verbally abused her, too. Some of the kids smoked as well.

The worst incident happened in March of 1983, when I was on my way home and three kids from Youth Services – two boys and a girl – followed me off the bus. They beat me up in an alley, though the girl did most of the abuse. I don’t quite remember, but I think a driver in a car saw what was happening and he intervened, and I ran up to the art gallery where my mom worked. Youth Services was pretty upset with those kids. I remained with the program until June, but then I left.

I returned to Youth Services when I was fifteen. It worked out much better this time, because I was older, and I fit in better. Also, I was with a better bunch of kids this time.

Age and incompatibility were also something of a problem in the special needs class I attended from Grades 2 to 4 (See my essay “K – 12 Education” for more on this program and the teachers). As well, most of the kids in this class were very hyper and would chase each other, crawl under desks, rip up pictures and posters, etc. This was very nerve wracking for me. I longed more than anything for a class with quiet, friendly kids. Also, the majority of the kids were younger than me and the program was pretty much geared towards them. This especially affected me during the leisure summer program. I wished there had been more kids my age. We would spend the day at a community park with a paddling pool. I wanted to go to the big pool, but we never did, because the smaller kids couldn’t swim in the big pool. Probably, it would have been better if there had been one session in the morning and one session in the afternoon; one for the younger kids and one for the older kids. In the older kids’ session, we could have gone to a park that had a big pool.

When I was in my teens and early twenties, I attended church social groups. The youth groups helped a lot, but the adult groups were a major disappointment. I attended church youth groups in Oshkosh, Wisconsin and Fort Dodge, Iowa when I lived with my dad and stepmother as a teenager.
At both youth groups, we met weekly, had supper and played games. In Iowa, we sometimes went for outings, including the Fort Dodge haunted house at Halloween, and to the Boys Ranch, a home for teenage boys with special needs. This was a village-type compound with houses, a school, a church, etc. It looked kind of like an open-air historical museum, and was out in the country. In addition, both youth groups had youth retreats where we stayed overnight, and I enjoyed those a lot. The kids accepted me very well. Sadly, my dad mentioned to me several years ago that the youth group in Fort Dodge got discontinued due to lack of support, and that church hardly has any social activity anymore.

In Wisconsin, our youth group had its own choir. This was a sing-along choir, which I enjoyed a lot, since I like to sing and be creative. I also sang in the regular church choir in Iowa, but when you sing in that kind of choir, you don’t get to be creative, it involves a lot of responsibility, and choir conductors can be real nitpickers. On the bright side, music is very important, since it can make a real difference in people’s lives.

The adult groups were another story. When I was nineteen, I attended Student Christian Movement meetings at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. That year, the group was run by two students in their mid-20s, and I had a good relationship with them. I especially enjoyed watching slide presentations, including one of a grand tour of Ecuador. Unfortunately, in August of 1989, both of these people moved away, and the next year, the group was run by two older students, and after that, I didn’t fit into the program anymore. I eventually stopped coming. Apparently, those meetings have since been discontinued due to lack of interest.

I then tried a young people’s group at a suburban United church. This group – as most church adult groups around here – didn’t meet frequently. They only met about once a month or once every two months, so there were few opportunities for me to meet anyone. There was one young person who came to the church every Sunday, and I wanted to make friends with him, but I don’t think we had much in common. I asked him out for coffee with me once and he came. But once I called him and invited him to go see “Born on the Fourth of July” with me, and he turned down the invitation. This guy never once asked me out, and I was very disappointed that he didn’t seem to think of me as a friend. If there had been any other people close to my age who came regularly to that church, I would have tried them, but there weren’t.

In the summer of 1990, when I was twenty-one, I attended daily sessions at the McKerracher Centre in Saskatoon, which was for adults with special needs. It was a life skills program that involved social activities. But all I really wanted was a social group with other adults with special needs who I could make friends with. Although I enjoyed socializing with others, this program was like a school. We had to attend the full days, we had to go on the outings, and we were not allowed to use our own transportation to get to the places. And we rode the regular city bus, too, something I almost never do in the summer. The staff didn’t even pay our fares! We had to pay the bus fare ourselves! I would have liked the McKerracher Centre to be a drop-in center, and for us to only attend activities that interested us. I didn’t want to be treated like a junior high kid!

At another young people’s church group, I found I just didn’t have much in common with anyone. They just sat and talked at once about things I either wasn’t interested in, or things I just didn’t understand. I wish that one of them had talked individually to me, but they just didn’t seem to include me. Everyone was focussed on what several people were talking about, so I couldn’t approach anyone. So much for that group.

Later on, I went to some men’s groups at some other churches. Unfortunately, it was mostly older men who I, once again, had nothing in common with. As a younger person with Asperger’s, I fit into the senior population like a basketball fits into a ketchup bottle.

None of the above groups met frequently.

I’ve never found Saskatoon Autism Services reliable either, when it’s come to social groups. In the 1990s, I volunteered with the adult club, but none of the adults were high functioning. At one point, they tried to form an Asperger social group. It was intended to be a social skills group, but I wrote a letter mentioning that as people with Asperger’s, we didn’t need social skills! We just need an opportunity to be with people like ourselves! I have benefitted little from social skills groups. And it’s not like neurotypical people don’t need them. (I can’t stand it when neurotypical adults start doing noisy things, call up someone on the phone, or start talking to others when you’re talking to them. They should be taught to be more attentive when someone’s speaking. Waiters and waitresses also need social skills groups. I find it annoying when you’re in a restaurant talking with your companion and a server strides up and interrupts you and doesn’t care that you’re talking. And when you try to say something to the waiter or waitress, he/she turns his/her back and strides away.)

So Saskatoon Autism Services had an Asperger social group, but unfortunately, didn’t work out. I attended a couple of sessions, but there was only one teenager and NO adults. This group was discontinued due to lack of interest. They have since had some social groups, but they have cost a fortune! I once read about such a social group, which cost $80 to $100 PER MONTH! Why pay a fortune like that just to make friends?!! I did talk to them about having a directory for people with Asperger’s, but they just gave me ding-dong-doh about confidentiality. These days, they don’t seem to be interested in much other than fundraising. What they spend all that money on is beyond me, as is why they don’t use it for social groups and things like that.

In recent years, I have organized a social group called PUFF (People United for Fun and Friendship). I thought that, since social groups are either scarce or unreliable, I’d make a social group. This group was formed with the help of two mothers with autistic children. We would usually have these socials in people’s homes. Parents would bring their kids, the kids would play together, and the adults would socialize. However, PUFF is currently on hiatus due to lack of interest.

This pretty much describes my experiences of social groups. But how good you think a social group may be for you or your children/dependents, there are three key things to keep in mind.

IS THE GROUP REGIMENTED? Will you be able to play and/or visit, or will you be doing things like talking to the professionals instead of your fellow attendees, or doing things that prevents you from visiting? Some people may find things like ritual ceremonies beneficial. My paternal grandfather (Paw-Paw) loved to attend masonic lodge meetings. He had difficulty socializing, and I think these kinds of rituals might have helped him because he didn’t have to talk freely a lot. But they don’t help me. It’s much better for me if I can visit with people than say prayers, speeches, etc. together.

COMPATIBILITY Will you or your kids have much in common with the other people in the group?

AGE This is especially important for children and youths. If you’re a parent or guardian, before enrolling your child in a social group, find out if there are any kids similar to your child’s age. Most groups for kids with special needs have a small number of kids and it’s very likely your kid won’t have any peers. This may also be a problem for young adults. If young people are in a social group, such as a church social, they may feel isolated if the other attendees are older people, and this very likely will be the case. When I went to church in my twenties, I didn’t feel like I fit in when I was the only young person and the others were, like, in their sixties and seventies and eighties.
Gender may also be something to consider. If, for example, you have a daughter with special needs, she may well be the only girl in a program for special kids, since the majority of these kids are boys. Often, the few girls in these programs feel isolated, since there are few or no other girls. Similarly, when I was twelve, I was enrolled in an art class (not special needs) for kids aged 11-13, since I didn’t have friends my own age and my mom and I assumed there would be lots of kids my age. Unfortunately, there was only one boy who was a teenager, quiet, and had nothing in common with me. I think he might have been a foreigner who didn’t speak English very well, but I’m not sure. All the other kids were girls, so I felt isolated and didn’t fit in. The information about this art class mentioned that the instructor would be a male, and that was another reason why I took this class – I needed a male figure in my life, since my dad was no longer living in Saskatoon. But it turned out the instructor was a woman, so this art class was no help in this matter. I dropped out after a few weeks.