Check the Front Door Lock
Around 3am on Wednesday morning—in the midst of a rainstorm—Anthony Musson saw a toddler walking down a street in Danville, Illinois. According to WCIA:
Musson says he talked the child into getting into his truck, until police arrived and says he’s glad he got him out of the rain when he did. ” I got him in the truck and he was so cold he couldn’t talk.”
Police took the child, and later returned him to his parents. Local authorities are investigating. Musson says he hopes all is well, and hopes the boy is safe. He says the whole ordeal makes him think about the little ones he loves.
Musson apparently has yet to see the child and his family and hopes that all is well.
And more good news: An 18-year-old autistic man, Taylor Hartley, was missing overnight on Wednesday near Plano, Texas. According to the Courier-Gazette, he was found in a ravine covered in mud early on Thursday morning.
On more than one email discussion list the I subscribe to, “front door lock” has been a topic of discussion. Charlie seems to understand that he’s to stay inside (unless we tell him) and, at the most, to wait by the car (as we rush down after him). But if I don’t hear his voice or the thump of his feet, I’m off and looking…..
Tags: adults, asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, disabilities blog, Family, family blog, Parenting, pdd-nos, plano, texas, wanderingRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Safety
14 opinions for Check the Front Door Lock
Bonnie Sayers
Jun 6, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I know of a parent that got the regional center to fund for a new secure front door thru Home Depot for her son. Matthew does not know how to open the door and it will stay that way as I have no plans to teach him. The same with the front gate.
Rebecca
Jun 6, 2008 at 1:30 pm
We actually just replaced the locks on the front door and added another to the patio door, as L, who is 3, figured them out. We also have to be careful of open windows. Both boys are big and like to sit in the window and people watch, but I worry they might push a screen out. I can’t wait until we get our yard fenced in in a few weeks, but even then, you just have to be careful.
cavamil
Jun 6, 2008 at 2:54 pm
We have two high-functioning girls in the autism spectrum and have had to have keyed locks on our front door for a couple years now (the double key kind). They work very well, though some places consider them a fire hazard since you need the key to open the door from the inside. However, for us it was the only thing that really worked since our girls were fascinated with unlocking things. We also ended up putting window locks on the windows so they only open so far. For a few years we had an alarm system just in case any of the locks failed and one of the girls got outside. The girls are almost at the point where I think we can start training them to not go outside without permission and I cannot begin to say how much I’m looking forward to that step.
Regan
Jun 6, 2008 at 3:06 pm
We have one of those keyed locks in the back (the kind that they recommend you not get anymore). Call me foolish, but I did make it a point to teach Eleanor how to open that, as well as how to lock and unlock doors.
One thing that scares me at least as much as her leaving without our knowing is what she needs to know if there is a fire. Even though it made our life busier and added more to that list of things to teach, I felt that if I didn’t teach her how to leave the house in case of that kind of emergency, that I would be missing something.
These guys are all individuals, it’s an individual case basis, and the amount of teaching involved is a lot (no getting around that), but we have been able to teach the discriminations of when to stay in the house, where to stay, when to let people know when you want to go out and how to independently return to the house. It was a long-term, dedicated teaching program and on reflection, took about 2 years to accomplish all the listed targets. We went through a period where there were bells and sensors on the doors and locks on the windows, and hog fencing in the back and side yards. Those gradually were removed as the skills were taught. It has been more than a few years that I had to be hypervigilant (although I would be crazy not to keep one ear cocked or not to be prepared lest things change).
farmwifetwo
Jun 6, 2008 at 4:09 pm
It won’t let me post above.
Just today on another bb (not an autism one), a woman posted that a collegues 3wk old baby had died from bacterial menigitus. #1 - I wondered why it wasn’t at home but you don’t get our year long mat leave so it was probably at daycare.
#2 - guess what happens when you don’t vaccinate children??
This is going to become the norm for a while. Until it becomes common place that children are harmed/killed/birth defects etc… b/c they aren’t vacinated.
S.
Regan
Jun 6, 2008 at 4:35 pm
cavamil,
I wanted to clarify and apologize if it sounded like I was making a specific judgement in reaction to the use of the keyed locks; I don’t think your post had come up when I was composing mine.
It’s just what we have, and the comment was just from what we’ve been told about fire safety. Sorry.
Chuck
Jun 6, 2008 at 5:18 pm
farmwifetwo,
According to CDC, first dose of Hib is not necessary until 2 months. Although any loss is tragic, this death would not have been prevented according to CDC guidelines.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jun 6, 2008 at 5:44 pm
@farmwifetwo, sorry, is there a post you can’t comment on?
I should probably be knocking on some wood, but Charlie is pretty good about knowing to stay inside. We used to try to hide the keys — we had installed a deadbolt and it could only be opened with a key— but he could always find them and sensed our straining to find new hiding places.
It also helped that we had a chime on the door of our old house so that you knew when it opened and closed. Very important.
But now you’ve all got me thinking about fire safety issues……
TLC
Jun 6, 2008 at 10:53 pm
I have a friend whose son is severely affected and he scales WALLS. She has found him by the freeway, miles away. She is in the process of getting a GPS locator for him to wear and of turning her house into a stalag to keep him safe.
Regional Center has done NOTHING.
Andrea
Jun 7, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Gus has gotten better about running out, but we still have to keep the locks on because he’s just unpredictable. We’ve got locks on the door, which because he has pretty low tone in his hands he can’t open, and also on the screen doors so we can get some air in here on days like today. The lock is high so he’d have to climb on a chair to reach it. By then we’d notice.I don’t leave the kids downstairs with the doors open anyway, even with the screen locks.
navi
Jun 8, 2008 at 10:23 am
we have to keep things closed/blocked. He seems to obey a closed outside door, but if it’s in any way open… We have to close our windows too, he’s figured out how to push the screen out - I don’t get why he won’t open the door (he can, he just won’t), but he’ll push the screen out. Maybe he doesn’t view the screen as a barrier. The whole balance between fire safety and flight risk safety is a tricky one, though I think flight risk trumps, as that is a much, much greater possibility. I think the only way to keep my son truly safe would be to have him in the same room with us 24/7, which isn’t always doable.
feebee
Jun 8, 2008 at 3:10 pm
We have an effective but homely solution for our autistic escape artist: a combination padlock with a hasp on our front door. No key to lose and very secure.
cavamil
Jun 9, 2008 at 10:01 am
Regan,
Don’t worry. I didn’t take it that way. :)
And yeah, fire safety is something we’re starting to do with ours as well. Our training right now is on the back sliding glass door since it’s the most difficult to open and the one I want the lock off the most, plus it has a fenced backyard in case our girls decide to go out without permission. I’m trying to find a good sensor/bell/alarm that I can install myself in our funky doors instead of going back to having a house-wide alarm through a service (which is probably what we’ll end up doing anyway even though we rent now instead of owning).
Thank you for letting me know it’s possible to train them to understand this concept. It’s appreciated more than you know.
Bonnie Sayers
Jun 9, 2008 at 2:01 pm
My son can push the screen out of the window also and then the cat jumped out and was gone one afternoon.
My son bangs on the inside door screen and this could open it so I only leave that door open later in the evening when we need that air to come in and no sun coming in and then we can keep a better eye on him.
I have computer here in kitchen and I can see him from here and dash into the room in a few steps to catch the door. Luckily he just likes to run in the front yard and scare cats and does not know how to open the gate to get out.
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