Autism

This gets to me as well. C is always being treated as child or ignored.

Interesting. Thought about this came up in recently in the context of a discussion of an adult day center that was furnished like a preschool. Another example I recall was of a 15 year old being taught a game that would clearly be played by a 3 year old when there are more age-appropriate, yet similar, games that could have been trialed to teach a leisure activity.
I believe sometimes there can be an overboard of "normalization", but in those cases even attempts of more age-appropriate activities and materials had not been probed.

I see your point about being more thoughtlessly physical than one might with an older typical kid...and thinking about what and how we talk and boundaries. As my daughter is clearly growing into a young woman, I often think about this and how despite challenges, she has her own person and dignity which should be respected and at the least acknowledged.

As a parent of two aspie boys who are teenagers, one of whom is in college, it is very important to balance their immaturity with their age appropriate need for independence. It is also very important that the schools remember that they need to be given independence and not to be treated like little children.I had to get after the school this year because they were patronizing my younger son and not holding him to a proper standard. I hate it when they pat them on the head and say "poor little boy with autism." I had a mom-fit and everything turned around.
The problem with social issues is that when they are younger you have Circle of friends or counseling groups (middle school) but in high school there is nothing. In fact we just found a group for my college level son, and it has adults in it as well. It is a new movement to fill in the gap for these children. I suggest that if you have a therapist maybe that person can actually start a group for them. The therapists like to say its the age, I say its because they have no experience with this age group having ASD and don't really know what to do yet, so they choose to do nothing thereby leaving us to wander and our children out in the cold.
By the way I have my own blog Raising Aspergers Kids, from PDD to aspergers to A's in College. asd2mom.spaces.live.com
Check it out, see if it helps  and lets discuss

I work with a preteen, about a year younger than Charlie, whose mother treats him like a little kid. It drives me up a wall. He's 11, he's not cute, he's handsome. It wouldn't be cute to buy him a game intended for three year olds that has no educational purpose. I can go for it if there is an educational outcome to it, or if we might start with this easier version and move him along to a more adult version, but not just because you think it's cute. Oh, and it wouldn't be cute to send the same type of thing to his classroom. They're all abou the same age. It would be cute to send it to the classroom with the 8 and under kids.
You wouldn't have kissed and hugged your typical son at this age in public, and it's not cute to do it with your son who has autism.  It's not cute or appropriate for anyone to be doing that with him in public at his age, and it some people's opinion, public displays of affection are never appropriate. Either way, it won't be appropriate by any measure for at least another 5-7 years.
Last, I never realized just how annoying it is to talk about someone like they aren't there when they are in the room until a parent of another client did it to me, and I was actually a part of that conversation. It took everything for me not to walk out in frustration, and wait until myself and the third person had left to say something to him about it. I never realized it until it was done to me, but I think perhaps some people need to have this done to them to get the point across.

My children were never big on physical affection and now its even less. But they like their backs scratched.  Sometimes boys are really not demonstative and it has nothing to do with the autism. I have found that that becomes the question as they age, what is age appropriate and what is their autism.
As far as people are concerned, I tell it like it is. I am not a shrinking violet and don't really tread lightly sometimes when it comes to my children. If the person gets embarrassed then its what they deserve. If they don't listen to you about Charlie, walk away and take Charlie with you. Tell them that when they learn to talk to CHarlie with respect you will continue the conversation. I have done this with family as well as strangers. It works.