Helping child find friends

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DS7 is HFASD. So am I. He has a couple of kids he gets along with but we can only organise to see each of them every few weeks. He's had 5 rounds of social skills intervention through the special school he went to for kindy to grade 1 (3 year early intervention program for language disorders), hasn't really helped, seeing a psych for better help next year.

I've tried asking in a local FB group for parents of AS kids, not one person interested in seeing if our kids might get along, lots of people commented saying they are too busy running the household and dealing with multiple kids with special needs.

He's in a group for gifted kids who have a monthly games night, it's the highlight of his month, but he has had a couple meltdowns from over stimulation there so none of the kids want to play with him outside of the games night.

He also has dyspraxia, joining a team sport is not an option. You have to go to church to do scouts here.

Any other ideas? Others must have been through this.

What are his hobbies and interests? If he's into Lego, sign him up for a class. Trains? Saturday camp at the local transport museum. Art? Drawing or painting lessons. Computers? Videogames? Some sort of programming class for kids.

Thank you for the ideas. I think I need to do more investigating, didn't know trains clubs etc existed. Ill google your ideas, thank you.

Also, look into clubs/social groups for mixed disabilities. I've actually found it easier to get along with physically disabled people and people with cognitive disabilities than with most of the other HFAs I've met. (LFAs I often seem to get along with really well, ironically. A lot of them seem fascinated by me as a high functioning person with mannerisms like theirs.)

Don't know what's available in your area, but I had some great times with activities put on by the Saskatchewan Association for Community Living (SACL), which is an advocacy group for people with cognitive/developmental disabilities. Most of the participants weren't autistic - there were a couple with Down Syndrome, and the rest mostly had nonsyndromic cognitive disabilities - but I got along really well with them.