Sometimes making faux pas really hurts.

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So, turns out that at an Internet forum I permitted myself a negative comment on the spelling skills of another member. Turns out that member was 11-year old autistic boy. Now how could I know that, for God's sake?
Worst thing is, this happened 10 months ago and I never noticed that his mother posted an angry response. She had all the right to be angry with me, but I didn't read the comment until now, otherwise I would have apologised right on the spot.
I wrote a private message to the mother, saying that I am sorry and disclosing the fact that I myself had and ASD so that I didn't mean to attack verbally her son as I never knew his age (perhaps somebody else would recognise the writing style of an 11-year old child but I didn't) and I never knew he was autistic. I just couldn't help myself.
But the whole affair did upset me. I hope I did the right thing, though admittedly it would have been much better if I had kept my big smart mouth shut. Blimey, and I dare to talk about being excluded on other threads when it's me who excludes autistic people.

Sorry for whining like that but I still feel a bit shaken and had to tell it.

It was an innocent mistake but why do spelling errors matter? NTs do this too to poorly written posts and over a few misspelled words but some are rude about it than polite. Some even play dumb over a word when they full well knew what the word was. I do admit poorly written posts also annoy me and when people use text talk or when they write a huge block of text. I usually skip those posts if they are long. Sometimes I will use my effort to read it. I skip long posts anyway even if they were well written because of my short attention span. But sometimes I read them if I have the patience.

Just as long as people are nice about poorly written posts, I don't see anything wrong with it. I once told someone here to use spell check because her post was very hard to read and she took it the wrong way or other members. I don't remember because it was a long time ago. But I knew she had dyslexia because she said so but I didn't see why it was an issue to suggest using spell check. Now I know better, back then I didn't.

But whenever I see a poorly written post with lot of spelling and grammatical errors, I assume the person could have a learning disability. I don't assume they are dumb or stupid or lazy or a troll.

Did you hear back from the mother?

Thanks LeagueGirl, what I actually did was exactly suggesting a spellchecker because I couldn't understand what was the post about. I could guess, of course, but, literally, my eyes hurt looking at it. Perhaps it was interpreted as a snide or sarcastic remark, which was not my intention.
I haven't heard of the mother because I discovered what I did just this evening. I sent her an apologetic private message straight away but turns out she never visited the forum after the incident - nine months, to be precise. So on top of it I feel guilty about chasing the mother away from the forum. The son, however, shows up from time to time, so looks like he wasn't offended or got over it. I don't feel it would be right to apologise directly to him - not only it would be awkward, but contacting an 11-year old boy might seem, you know, dodgy, his mother is rather protective of him and perhaps for a good reason.

As for spelling errors, they do matter to me because correct spelling in one of my personal obsessions. I can appreciate a good post with or without correct spelling though, I know, I really must try and be less of a spelling Nazi.

Any sort of criticism can trigger an angry and over-protective reaction, especially from parents of a child with a disability. Criticizing anyone requires a certain delicacy, especially strangers. Even then it's usually unwelcome. It's safe to assume that people have friends, teachers and relatives who have already pointed out all of their defects. There is therefore no need for you to point them out yourself unless you happen to be their friend, teacher or relative.

Thanks for the replies. Certainly I'm moving on.
Somehow, apologising made me feel a bit better, though I realise that my message might never be read.