How to deal with this?

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Actually it can be even less. The multiplication up to 5*9 + 10*anything is enough.
I remember having huge problems remembering multiplication table but I found my way to do math examples effectively - I gave up on remembering numbers higher than 5*9 and for example instead of remembering 7*7 I was counting 5*7+2*7 and instead of 8*9 I was counting 8*10-8.

I would use whatever grid they use at school, just for consistency. When I was a kid, it was the 12x12, but I have heard some use 9x9.

Also, as a sidenote, Timez Attack is an excellent and fun math fact drill game. The basic home version is free.

http://www.bigbrainz.com/

(I am not associated with the company in any way. I heard about the game on this site, and am recommending it b/c I think it is fun and useful.)

Great!

InThisTogether, my son has the same math profile! His teacher says he grasps concepts faster than a lot of the kids, but is not able to recall basic math facts.

Another idea: I just got a board game called Kingdoms. My son tends to learn best if he is learning it by touching, with visuals and if he is highly interested. In this game, you have to place your pieces strategically to get the most points. You have to add rows and columns which may contain both positive and negative numbers, then you have to multiply by how many points your castle is worth. Then, you need to figure out how much money you earned and count the coins which are 50s, tens, fives and ones. I found the game a little boring, but my son loves it and it is just the type of multi sensory math experience that he needs.

On the general issue of meltdowns, I think that it is good to let autistic children have meltdowns, esp. regularly at home, and not super avoid them. A meltdown is a nice release of emotion for the kid, and often, whatever seemed to trigger the meltdown is not a problem after the meltdown, so the range of things or eggsperiences that the kid can handle will broaden, if the kid has a meltdown. If the meltdown is avoided, then the trigger will continue to be a problem, and as the kid meets more things and eggsperiences, more triggers will appear, with no meltdowns to neutralize them. Esp. with emotional eggsperiences like being wrong, it is really important to release negative emotions through a meltdown. Meltdowns are not the enemy. The bottling up of negative emotions and impact of them on kid's life and emotional development are problems. A kid who can't handle being wrong some of the time is going to have more problems as teenager or adult, including interpersonal problems dealing with others, which suck even more than one's own internal problems, in my opinion.

My son is very good at math and he knows it, so it when he makes a mistake - I say things like, oops, I think you made a mistake here - I know you know this. Things like that.

I find it much harder to provide reassurance with his language skills. He's not as good at it and he hates it and he also knows he's not as good at it, so takes things really personally. He is 7.

My son is very good at math and he knows it, so it when he makes a mistake - I say things like, oops, I think you made a mistake here - I know you know this. Things like that.

I find it much harder to provide reassurance with his language skills. He's not as good at it and he hates it and he also knows he's not as good at it, so takes things really personally. He is 7.

+1
My 8yo does a lot of "interesting, alternative math" like adding numbers when she's supposed to subtract. I always try to understand her reasoning so that I can point out exactly where her mistake was, then say something like "Your answer was exactly the right answer to xyz other question, but remember the question that was actually asked was zyx, right? So let's try again". Seems to work well for us.
We also keep an abacus in the house, she doesn't normally need it anymore but sometimes, when the going gets tough, I tell her to use it and it seems to help get her back on track.

No calculators around here. It's a sort of philosophical issue for me - whoever developed the hardware / firmware / software for that thing was only human and could have made mistakes (remember the Pentium division bug? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug). IMHO a big part of the reason we still teach arithmetic in this day and age, is to ensure that future generations will have people capable of detecting and fixing such bugs, and to create new, better computing hardware. Otherwise why not just teach the kids how to use a calculator and be done with it?
YMMV of course.

I tend to agree with that statement. Kids who have the world structured to avoid meltdowns tend to end up as very fragile adults. Kids who are shamed for melting down tend to end up abusive adults. Obviously you can't pretend that it's OK to scratch and bite and throw things and hurt people...

...but I still don't understand why it can't be OK for a kid to cry and yell, or for an adult to cry and raise their voice, maybe bang the dishes in the sink or slam the door on their way out for a few deep breaths. In my home growing up, we called this "losing your temper." It was understood that we were imperfect, that tempers were lost from time to time, and that when it happens you should try to walk away and cool down, come back, apologize, make up, and move on with finding constructive solutions.

It seems my home growing up was a lot saner than those of most of the people I know, and produced less meanness, manipulation, and toxicity. I wish I could go back there, and take the younger version of a lot of people with me.