But OP can't possibly be minimising the problem to make others who didn't want to wait around for her lack of action seem like the issue. Her kid got off the bike, laid on the floor. So she stopped and got off, DH is stopped and off. Cyclists then arrived, she sits there "soothing" in the middle of the cycle path, cyclists make comments, DH was swearing, then she's got the kid out of the way, and the other cyclists were arseholes. In 20 seconds. Ok.
As PP says, some parents think autism is some kind of magic word that means you are more important than other people in your environment, and other people are in fact arseholes if they don't pander to your importance. Our kids are our priority, but you can't automatically expect everyone else to make them such and get aggy when they don't. And the sad thing is, as this thread proves, it's rarely the child that anyone has issue with. It's the parents being ineffective and/or entitled with expectation. Naturally, parents like that won't have it that they are the problem, so default to the narrative that "people have such disdain for disabled children" with the confidence that no one would dare challenge that, as if they do, will get told they too clearly have a problem with disabled children.
As the mother of a disabled child, this attitude does most of us a real disservice. There are some other posters on the thread, in similar positions, who it's a breath of fresh air to read their comments. Comments of accountability. Comments of what the parents could think about and how their actions affect others. Comments of consideration being a two way street.
You get good parents and bad parents in all walks of life. Strict parents. Lazy parents. Disney parents. Authoritarian parents. The notion that parents of disabled children aren't capable of poor parenting is just bizarre. Just like everyone else, some parents will be great and some not so. Everyone has their off days, and it's fine to sit back, reflect and say; you know what, I could have handled that better.