Autism Vox

Summer Safety for Autistic Children

by Kristina Chew, PhD on August 9th, 2006

In more than a few posts this summer, I have noted too many accounts of autistic children in unsafe situations, due in part to children being outside more in the summer, the presence of swimming pools, and the hot weather (so that people are more likely to leave windows open):

• Tyji Chester, who drowned in a pool next to his school on June 6th
• Jaden Fournier, who drowned in a backyard swimming pool in June
• Xavier Tobias Moore, who was killed in a car accident in July

In an editorial today, The special dangers for those with autism, Craig Stoxen, president and CEO of the South Carolina Autism Society, writes about “extra measures, such as door and window alarms, wearing identification and alerting neighbors and emergency responders to possible scenarios” that families can take to help keep their children safe.

I would also add “education” to Mr. Stoxen’s list. Of course, we parents and caretakers of autistic children need to keep our eyes open and be there all the time, first of all. While the concept of “safety” can be difficult to teach to autistic children, as Mr. Stoxen notes, we can keep on working on teaching our children simple and straightforward activites—like only walking on the sidewalk (and what to do when there is no sidewalk), seeing a stop sign and stopping. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that my husband and I have made such teaching a priority for Charlie.

My husband has taught Charlie about stop signs while they ride their bikes. Rather than going to long, word-filled explanations about the dangers of cars and how a driver may not see him, we have focused on teaching Charlie to look at the stop sign and associate that red octagon with “squeezing the brakes” on his bike. It took many bike rides and some quick thinking and grabbing Charlie’s shoulder for Jim to teach Charlie this and Charlie cannot, of course, ride his bike on his own. But Charlie now looks up at the stop sign as he nears an intersection and is starting to slow down on his own. We have similarly worked on the concept of “stay in the front yard.” Charlie is never in front of our house without someone with him, but it is important for his sense of himself—his dignity—that no one is constantly telling him to get out of the street or stay on the lawn.

Fences and locks on doors and windows are necessary, of course, as is constant vigilance. I have found that if we make a big deal about keeping things locked, Charlie picks up on our concerns and can go to some lengths to try to open the lock, find where the key is hidden, and run away precisely because he knows that that is what we are trying to avoid. It is not easy, but trying to actually teach Charlie what to do to be safe in the summer and at all times can have longer-lasting results: Charlie knows to stay out of the street and not wander out of our yard, and his smile tells me that he is proud that he knows this—and that, rather than frantically trying to keep him penned up, we are teaching him the right, the safe, thing to do.

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