@ Commander Wallace
Thank you kindly, CW - there is however more help now than there used to be: we were easily able to get him his placements in special schools throughout the years, one of which also held "Early Bird" classes for parents. But there never could be a manual to cover this issue because all autistic folks are different: as they say, when you meet one autistic person then you've met only
one autistic person!
Now he's finished college and become an adult, they do provide a daytime group there called "Adult Skills" (he can go every day if he wants but I take him just on Mondays and Fridays) - they just do fun things, like plane spotting at Conings by (I'd have liked to have gone on that trip
). And because of his disability he gets this totally funded by the local authority - we couldn't afford it