Asperger's groups/meetups

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Have any of you joined or attending any ASD/Aspergers meetup or groups? If so how do you like the group your in? Do you find the group fun and beneficial to you? or not? I'm involved in a group like this in my area and find it kind of dissapointing, we mostly just play games and learn basic life skills like cooking stuff dont really get an opportunity to just have fun and socialize getting to know people. We also only meetup once a week. The person who runs the group treats us like kids. But the thing I LEAST like the most is that most is that people often don't show up. Most of the time only 2-3 people come and many times the meetings get cancelled because of even less attend because people often chang their mind last minute. Very frustrating!

I attend an Asperger's social group in the UK, it's run by the members themselves with help from a few volunteers, and is a great success. We meet twice a month in a pub, people mostly chat and socialise, perhaps play chess, board games or cards occasionally. Some of us meet up outside the group too, plus there's a small social network used for keeping in touch. In general people make good friends, as well as supporting each other and offering practical help. I used to volunteer at another group, but that was very much like the one you describe, the person who ran it was very patronising to the members and treated it more as a form of workshop or informal therapy session - so I stopped going.

It seems to me that such groups work best if they are used for socialising, not 'improving' the members. If you want therapy, see a therapist. The best way to learn to socialise is to ... socialise.

I've been kicking around the idea of attending an Asperger's group tho technically speaking I have an ASD diagnoses thanks in part to the DSM 5 changes...and a speech delay when I was a kid so I'm unsure if that automatically rules me out or not.

Tho since I've joined this site and got to talk with some of the members publicly and 1:1 via PM it has been beneficial to me plus I can retain some sense of anonymity where as being with a group of people kinda makes me feel like I'm being judged in a non verbal sense.

I found they are less about Autism Politics and more about finding solution/workarounds. Also as many Autistics are visual thinkers seeing other Autistics can give a prospective that WP can not.

I'm kind of dissapointed that I've only got three responces on this post so far. I really enjoyed and learned a lot from the responses and thought they were good but I want to hear so more of what people think.

I also read your other post on this question, so I'm going to combine my responses.

First of all, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to attend offline gatherings, many of which have trouble with generating and maintaining attendance.

I think the first issue is that "The person who runs the group treats us like kids.". I ran into this before with an offline group, and it didn't seem to encourage attendance.

The second issue is the activities. I don't have a poll or study on hand on what activities would work better, but cooking & "Arts and Crafts" classes might not be the most effective activities, particularly if it's being presented as some sort of "life skills" program (I don't know if that's what you meant or not).

A third issue would be that there isn't a social portion of the monthly cycle. The one group I can think of used it's monthly meeting to have discussions, and then advertised it's social events separately. I believe they also took deposits in advance for the social events, which was one of the ways they reduced "no-shows". I believe that group had an issue with persistent "no-shows", but I'm not sure if they made a decision how to handle those cases.

The good news is that you have a group that is holding at least some events, and people are attending, which is a good start.

Attend an Aspergers group. Yes our attendance is low, between 4 and 8 people. I think that is due in part to our natural tendencies to want to stay home and not be around people. Also because of a lack of awareness of the groups existance. For example, I found out about the group here. We mostly talk about our social struggles in our daily life, and occasionally talk about ways of coping with these issues. I go mostly because it is comforting to be around people who have the same struggles as myself.

I have thought about it but have been afraid to go. Perhaps that's why attendance is low.

There's an autism group that meets around here. I've belonged to it for two years or so and have never went to a meeting because they want you to bring something to eat and I never know what to bring. Plus, I'm now a Jain so my food choices would be limited to rice, peas, corn and beans. If they don't mind that then it's ok.

I don't know of any groups in my area.

I am in a autism group, my city is quite small so there's not a whole lot of members but it's run by the Autism Recource centre in my city and they run different groups for people of different ages and spectrum disorders, I am in the teens high functioning group and they have monthly get togethers and plan summer camps where we sometimes excersize social, career and life skills but also go to the beach, water park, zoo, cinema ect. It's quite fun and one of my best friends with PDD-NOS goes there as well.