New Here

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Hi everyone. While not exactly 'new' here (joined some time ago and

have been reading the email digests), I am new to posting to the

board.

I have two Asperger kids, son age 12 and daughter age 9.

We live in Southern Maine but have our house on the market and are

looking to move back to Massachusetts where the services for my kids

are more readily available. I would love to hear from anyone in

this forum who is from my area!

I am also in search of social groups for my kids, particularly my

son, and we have NOTHING in my area of Maine. I attemped to start

such a group through my kids schools, but was unsuccessful. The

SPED Director did trial an afterschool program last year with my

input and some extra funds in his budget he needed to use up, but it

ended up focusing on the more severe kids in the Spectrum, and it

didn't last long. I also started a local support group and that

fizzled out after about 6 months. I can't believe this isn't

important to people in my town. We have over 23 kids with a

diagnosis of autism, one third of which is Aspergers, and this is a

small town.

If anyone here is from my general area and knows of any groups (or

would like to start one with me) in Southern Coastal Maine or NH, or

North Shore of MA, I would appreciate hearing from you. I am

interested in true social groups, something fun and not academic or

formal pragmatic groups. Just something where my kids can make

friends and hopefully find kids who share their interests.

My daughter doesn't really need it, although I am sure she would

love participating. She has several friends who are both interested

in the things she likes and can also tolerate her little quirks. My

son, on the other hand, has only one friend with whom he spends time

outside of school. Long story short, the other child cancels on him

a lot which is very upsetting to my son, and I would like to see him

branch out and spend time with other kids as well. He enrolled in

two intramural programs at school this year, which were cancelled

after the second week due to the High School Basketball team needing

to borrow the Jr. High School Gym after school...another

disappointment!

I do know of one social group in Danvers MA run (I think) by North

Shore ARC. They have several programs, one of which runs every

other Saturday. Only problem is, it is rather costly, and I can't

afford it.

In any case... if anyone can help me, please post response or email

me directly at fmundy@...

Thank you in advance.