My son is an Aspie (Asperger’s Syndrome) and has an extremely hard time making friends and communicating. For him talking to others is a major ordeal, and when he finally does talk sometimes is very hard to understand his point of view or his ideas because of his lack of conversational and social skills. He is an extremely bright kid that loves to share his knowledge, but he gets frustrated when he can’t find the right words or the right person that has the patience to wait for him to explain himself. When he was in 7th grade, I was desperately looking for a program that would fill both his need for social interaction and where he could feel safe from all the taunting he was getting at school, plus I wanted a group that would understand him and where he would be heard. That summer I read about Xcite Steps and what the program was about and thought I would give it a shot even though I had no idea who the people providing the service were. I signed Mike for summer camp and when I dropped him off he was screaming bloody murder and holding onto the door, there was no way on earth he was going to get off the car and into some stranger’s car; finally Matt came over, talked to him and convinced him to let go and get in his car, but Mike was still screaming hysterically. After he got in Matt’s car, I told Matt to please call me if he wanted me to pick my boy up because of the screaming and his words convinced me that this was the right group and more importantly the right people to teach my son how to be social and behave in a group; Matt said “I won’t ever call you just because he is crying, I’ll call you only in case of emergency, so go and have fun that I am in charge of your boy now” and off they went Matt, my screaming almost 8th grader and three other very happy boys. When they came back three hours later, Mike was smiling and actually had talked to everyone, I couldn’t be happier.

Now Michael is in 11th grade and participates in the Saturday group, looking forward to most of the activities and talking to “the guys” (although he would talk to Pam too, sometimes). Although he has taken part in the summer camps and one on one mentoring, Saturdays with the boys is his favorite time. Mike has matured a lot since he started in the program and his socials skills have improved, and even though he still has problems with pragmatics and communications, now he is more open to let his feelings and knowledge known. He won’t tell me what he did or how he feels but the fact that he wants to keep going tells me that he is having a great time. I just wish Mike would make friends and get together with them whenever he wants like a normal teenager, but that is part of the whole process and I hope in the near future he’ll be able to invite friends over. Everybody I talked to that has had experience with Xcite Steps have only great things to say about the program, I am very happy to be part of that group. Thank you Matt, Pam, Miles and John for helping Michael in his quest for social acceptance, for giving him the opportunity to belong to something so important as a social group, where he can be “one of the guys”. Your love and patience with this kids and your understanding of their “handicaps” is what makes me feel comfortable and bring my son to you every weekend. Thank you again for letting Mike be himself.

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