Shirley Blaier Stein knows from personal experience that a youngster’s diagnosis as autistic can be devastating for the parents.

Her own experiences led her to start Autism Parents Community, a group that organizes social events that are specially designed for autistic children and their parents.

The events include Zumba dance parties and children’s movie theater outings in Milford and a music and movement class in Woodbridge.

Stein, a New Haven resident whose husband is a law professor at Cardozo Law School in New York, said her son, Dan, will be 8 this month. Although he is autistic, he loves to play, hike, run and wrestle, and he loves music, she said. "He’s an active, fun little boy." But he doesn’t know how to communicate with people.

When Dan was 3, she learned he was autistic. At first, Stein said she denied it. "It took me a long time to wrap my head around what I had to do," she said.

Gradually, she realized how much autism demands from a parent. Individuals with autism are overwhelmed by sensory input. Bright lights and loud noises can trigger defensive behavior that other parents and children don’t understand, so the parents stop bringing their autistic children out in public.

"The parents get isolated, too, because you never know how a child with autism is going to behave in public," she said.

Stein said she didn’t begin to feel comfortable about it until she met other mothers of autistic children and learned that she wasn’t the only one.

The more she learned, the more it convinced her there was a need for something like Autism Parents Community. Most of the discussion about autism focuses on the causes, which are the subject of intense debate, but very little is done to include autistic children and their parents in normal childhood activities.

"I’m very passionate about this, and nobody addresses it in our society," she said.

She said Autism Parents Community organizes dance parties and movie theater outings that keep the sound volume low enough for autistic children to tolerate. And since everyone is either autistic or a parent, no one is shocked if a child behaves differently.

Stein has also written a book about her experiences parenting a child with autism. She is looking for a publisher and hopes it will help other parents get over being depressed, like she did, to empower themselves and focus on positive things.

"When you learn this, this is how you heal," she said.