we had similar issues of course. Matilda has had sleep overs with her "cousins" (one of my best friends girls) and sometimes its so hard on both of them that it takes months to recover and she keeps asking and wondering why no one will have her over. She's so much better than she used to be, but its hard for her to understand that its also hard on the other kids sometimes.

I have found that older kids are better, they are more patient with her. She's slept over at mrsmac's house once and loved it and was perfectly behaved!!! I think it takes understand on the children and the mum's part.

I agree with trying to get in touch with other autism parents, they tend to understand more. Even if another child is lower functioning, they work together, they "get" each other and often times will find other ways of communicating. My DD1 was with me at preschool picking up DD2 and went up to the low functioning ASD boy there and sat next to him and drew and pointed to things... he doesn't speak but somehow they started communicating with each other. In a matter of 10 minutes... it was amazing to see. They are both very social...