Anyone been to a "talk camp"?

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I don't remember if it was called "talk camp". Anyway, when I was little, my mom always put me in summer camps during the summer (so I will have something to do). There was nothing special about the summer camps, just giving kids something to do while their parents are busy. However, one summer, my mom took me to this talk camp where they apparently teach you to socialize. I remember getting stickers everytime I answer a question. Now that I'm thinking back, there may have been some aspies there, but I did not talk to anyone back then.

I wish. Instead they held me back in school instead of letting me skip grades, in hopes I would socially adjust. Wrong.

I wish that my parents would have done that, for me, when I was young.

I don't know if you would if you had all the information. It's not that specialized "camps" like this are all bad; it's just that the potential for abuse is so huge that when they are bad, they're horrible; and even sometimes when they're not, you still get the usual institution-type problems.

It's not that it's a bad idea to send kids with various disabilities to camps where they can get specialized lessons; it's that when you do, often times there's no checks and balances on the staff's power and poor communication between child and parents. Because the kids are disabled, the same problems that crop up in special education classes can happen--only without a chance to go home and make it obvious by conversation or behavior that there's something wrong at school.

Call me cynical, but if I had an autistic child, I wouldn't leave them anywhere where the staff didn't welcome parents dropping in without notice; and then I would do exactly that. If they're scared that parents are gonna go momma bear on them, then they've probably got a pretty good reason to be.

I don't know. My parents made me go to a week long overnight camp for kids with more serious disabilities such as Down Syndrome and cerebal palsy. There was a mix-up with my one on one aide and one girl sharing my tent was a bully. I hated being there but they wouldn't call my parents to come get me and kept telling me I would eventualy enjoy it. I did not and wonder if I have some PTSD from being there. The second year (my parents did not learn) I screamed and screamed because I knew that being disruptive and keeping the others awake was the only way they would call my parents to come get me. My mum tells me she sent me there because she thought I would help out with the lower functning and more disabled kids. WTF? She always complaning about how unhelpful I was. I always read that sending a child with AS to a camp more gearded twoards those with Down Syndrome or physical disabilites is a bad idea and I agree 100%.

I wish I have gone to Tommy's Holiday Camp! (just kidding)