Single dad looking for advice about birthday party issue.

Surely you talked to him about the disruptive behaviour being the reason he stopped being invited?

Can’t be arsed RTFT but no you can’t invite the whole class except the kid with autism. You’ll have to reduce the list down further to her closest friends.

Why not ? OP wouldn’t be excluding him because of his autism, but because of the bad behaviour. The former is not an excuse for the latter and the sooner he learns the lesson the sooner he’ll be included. There is no reason on earth for excluding anyone on the grounds of disability, just as there is no reason on earth why others should tolerate bad behaviour by giving a free pass for bad behaviour just because the person is disabled.

This is the issue isn’t it ? It’s a simple equation. Behave badly = people don’t like you.

Whilst I agree, you know how this looks and I’m afraid I couldn’t personally be that parent. It won’t look like he’s excluding this child due to bad behaviour, it’s obvious how this will look. Also put yourself in the shoes of this small child when everyone in the class receives an invitation and he doesn’t. He’s 6, they’re in year 2.

Yes of course . But when the time came he couldn’t cope.

Tbh I think the social exclusions probably affected me more than him - made me feel very isolated as a parent.
But now he is older thankfully things are different all
round.

Respectfully, that’s you deciding that your child and his/her guests enjoying the birthday party is less important than ‘the optics’, and whether you might look bad in the eyes of other parents. I mean, obviously you’re free to do that, but what your saying to your child is ‘Your enjoyment of your own party is less important than me potentially looking bad because I didn’t invite a child with a track record of being violent to you and disrupting other children’s parties because his mother won’t parent him sufficiently on the day to prevent him ruining things.’

Don't invite him. Autism or not, it's your daughter's party. He's hurt her and is likely to ruin her birthday.

And therin lies the difficulty. I don't think anyone is saying it's the child fault. We only have the OP's word for it, but it appears that the Mum is doing next to nothing to manage the behaviour, to the detriment of the birthday child and the other children attending the party. Certainly I, and probably many of those saying not to invite him, would be happy to make practical accommodations IF the suggestions were reasonable and she could be relied upon the manage/remove if the situation required it. The party giver and other children would be more relaxed about invites if it was a case of 'we'll invite x but if he can't cope he'll leave and there will be minimum disruption', especially if Mum can head it off before it happens.
This particular child is also violent, and lashes out. This is something the Mum may not be able to act quickly enough to stop. Are you honestly saying, if this were your childs party, that you would force your child to invite a child known to hurt them, have the stress and unpleasantness of having to manage the risks that child posed to all the children present, while knowing the Mum wasn't open to being asked to do address her own child's behaviour? And all the while the child is attending an event that is almost guaranteed to overwhelm him, and he would most probably be better off avoiding for his own sake, let alone everyone else's?
There is an ideal world, and then there is the real world.

The optics of this are irrelevant. OP knows why he wouldn’t be inviting him and it’s nothing to do with his disability - it’s about ensuring the safety and enjoyment of other invitees. At six the boy is old enough to grasp the concept that if he behaves badly he won’t be invited to these things. It’s a very hard life lesson I agree, but he’s got a lifetime of navigating his disability in front of him and the earlier he learns that it’s not an excuse to behave badly, the less difficult his life will be.

I wouldn’t invite him. End of. Your child has to put up with that behaviour during school time of which she has no choice - she shouldn’t have to put up with it outside of school