Hi, I'm Dr. Mary Barbera, autism mom and
board certified behavior analyst. In
today's video blog, I want to talk about
how to keep a child with autism who has
limited language abilities safe. Since
young children with autism who might be
tall enough and strong enough to leave
their homes or classrooms but might have a
language and cognitive functioning of a
toddler. One of my former clients who I
consulted with when he was 2 years of
age was severely impacted by autism. When
he was 6, on a summer day in June, he
wandered from his house and drowned in a
neighbor's pool. It was devastating and
wandering and drowning are major
concerns of children and adults with
autism. It's a horrible thing. I've
experienced some worry, nothing obviously
that serious, but with my own son Lucas
who used to wander to the
point where one or two times we had to
call the police. So it's an issue I've
struggled with for almost two decades,
both personally and professionally. For
Lucas, when he was little he had a
medical alert bracelet and now he
carries a wallet around and has a non
driver's ID with him at all times. He
also has an iPod with him and the "Find
My iPhone" app which is like a GPS on him
at all times and he's never alone in the
community as he requires supervision.
Lucas can't go outside or take a walk by
by himself because we can't teach him to
understand all the abstract concepts
regarding safety.
Fortunately, Lucas doesn't wander anymore
so we don't have to worry about him
leaving the house like we did when he
was a young child. Another issue for
Lucas and many of my clients is that
it's difficult or impossible to teach
them to call 911.
Well, we could actually physically teach
Lucas to dial 911, but what we
can teach is we can't teach him how to
discriminate if there is danger or if
there is a true emergency. It's important
that we look at language comprehension
ability and not just a person's
chronological age when we are
considering what to teach in terms of
safety and if a child, teen, or adult with
autism has language abilities of a two
or three-year-old child they are
probably not going to understand many of
the abstract concepts surrounding safety.
Without supervision, these teens, adults,
and young children, may be doing
dangerous things like going in the
middle of the street, or jumping into a
pool, even though they don't know how to
swim, because they have no idea about
safety and it may be difficult for us to
provide the amount of supervision a
child or adult at this level needs to
keep them safe. You may need to have
bolts on doors, or doorknob safety
handles that you can get at a baby store.
And you may need to have a one-to-one in
the child's IEP at school if there's any
chance of him wandering away from the
school building. Some things that you can
do today to increase the safety of your
child or clients. First of all, as warmer
weather is approaching in many parts of
the country, and I know I'm speaking to
the world so wherever you live, if there
are pools to teach the your child or
clients to swim, without floaties. The boy
that did drown, he used to love the pool,
but he could only go in with floaties
and so without the floaties when he
wandered he ended up drowning. So I know
that parent really recommends that you
teach a child to swim and this may
require one-to-one swim instruction.
Number two, tell your neighbors with
pools to make sure that gates are locked
at all times and if you have a pool or a
hot tub make sure to secure those well
too. Number three, in addition really
important to secure your doors of
your home, turn on chimes, or if you don't
have an alarm system or chimes, you can
put bells on doors and so the doors open
you will know right away. Also, get
medical alert bracelets or necklaces, look
into GPS systems that are
monitored by the police or local
emergency agencies and this is
especially important if your child has
been known to wander. If you would like
these tips in a handy cheat sheet,
download this cheat sheet right below
this video. I hope you found this video
blog helpful and it has given you some
ideas about how to keep your child or
clients safer going forward and I'll see
you next week.