This is for people that I live with.
I don’t mean any lame team building exercises, but casual group activities. It could be something mundane like organizing a trip to the store together. Movie trips would also be fine as would showing something on the home projector, though I feel like there’d be more distractions and temptation at home.
One important point I have not found in the comments is the schedule. If you schedule such an event, stick to it. Don’t move it around in time or location, especially not last minute. My son had serious problems when they moved tests in school e.g. from 08:00 to 10:00.
With repeated schedules, avoid fixing them to e.g. “the second Wednesday in the month”. If that second Wednesday happens to be a public holiday, you might be in for a surprise, Better: “The date and time for the monthly activity will be published at the beginning of the month”, and make dead sure the paper is always on the notice board just before the first.
It’d depend on the severity of their autism and stuff.
But going for a walk together or anything without big crowds. If they’re ok with crowds, go shopping together or something. Any normal activity can be ok unless they’re the type to get overstimulated.
We could go to the grocery store or a movie at a time when it’s not busy.
We could go for walks somewhere but it would take a collection of mopeds and e-bikes going at e-bike speed because there’s not a good walk place from the house. I think a group walk at night when it’s quiet would be good.
There’s one roommate with noticeable autism and I wouldn’t call it very severe but he could be trying to hide it.
There’s one roommate with noticeable autism and I wouldn’t call it very severe but he could be trying to hide it.
Is there any public transportation in the area and do they feel comfortable riding on it? If so and if they’re receptive to it, you could potentially “collect” transit lines, where you ride one line from beginning to end to see the view outside, potentially explore the areas along the route, and “collect” routes and corridors they’re explored, take pictures (of the surroundings if they themselves don’t like being photographed), and basically explore different parts of the city that way. Usually most transit networks are fairly quiet at night as well.
Obviously the viability of this depends on what level of transit network you have, the more extensive and built-up the better since that can reach more places faster.
Unfortunately it’s hard to really weigh in without knowing the individuals. There are alot of factors. A hypersensory person with autism would be completely different from a hyposensory person with autism. And that’s just one factor that would make a huge difference. You might have to involve them in any plans to find out what is a no-go for each of them.
But with that in mind, knowing that any one of these could be immediately shot down: Arcades, Bowling, Zoo/Aquarium, Go-Karts. For cheaper stuff; visiting a pet store, seasonal local festival/event type stuff, a group bike ride on a park trail. Stuff that really depends on personalities and interests but gonna suggest them anyway as it might not be something a normal person would think of; the type of party that highschoolers would have thrown back in their day(junk food, music, party games), a drive out to a local train crossing when a train is scheduled to cross(depending on interest level).
In my experience VR is currently much more popular among the Autistic crowd, so if you can either go to a VR arcade, or have access to a VR headset. That might be something to ask about.
But yeah, ultimately, it’s really hard to know as we’re all largely completely different. The few “commonalities” aren’t pervasive, just more likely.
Dungeons and Dragons is popular among autistic people
My sister has been talking about getting into 40k since transitioning. If we do that we’ll probably get resin printer and use third party model files. Before she transitioned the model prices were getting insane and I can’t imagine where they are now.
The problem is that she passes very well and that might be a problem.
May I recommend trying Grimdark Future, in that case. Particularly Grimdark Future: Firefight.
The 40k lore is fantastic and tons of fun. Unfortunately the rules not so much. The rules of Grimdark Future, by contrast, are very clean and well balanced.
Fortunately, you can map the lore of 40k directly onto Grimdark Future (like I suspect most people do) and end up with the best of both worlds.
Another big advantage of Grimdark Future over 40k is that it is mini agnostic. If you want to use 40k minis, go for it. If you want to use 3rd Party minis, that’s fine too. Lego people, plastic soldiers, pebbles - all good.
By contrast, the official line for playing 40k in Games Workshop Stores and GW Tournaments is that the minis need to be GW, no 3rd Party minis allowed. (It didn’t used to be this way, and many store owners will be happy to turn a blind eye, but that’s the official stance).
If you are interested in this route, Wargames Atlantic do a superb line of very affordable minis that can be used - Death Fields.
What happened with the 40k rules?
I never learned them, but I understood a few of the basic concepts. I’ve seen a few things recently that say that force organization is optional and any unit from any army can be taken, both of which I have strongly mixed feelings about.
The lack of a suppression mechanic always seemed like a huge detriment.
Something model agnostic would be desirable. The cost of models is absolutely insane.
I could certainly set up half the living room to be a gaming area and then use that for group activities.
Not an exact answer to your question, but:
One of the most important parts of e.g. company events was that I have a place for retreat; and acceptance of everyone that when I leave for a while nobody would stop me.
Ensure they know that you won’t be angry if they leave (early or even just for a few minutes).
And maybe even see beforehand if there are places that are suitable for such a retreat, which depends on each person individually but at least for me almost any park/canal/whatever-is-marked-as-green-on-a-map is suitable as long as there are parts with only few people.
