As I sit watching the news of yet another series of wild fires being fueled by the Santa Ana winds in California, I see story after story of the perils of people of all sorts escaping the danger with only the clothes on their backs and the company of loved ones. Every time I hear of any natural disaster displacing people I can’t help but wonder how the families who have children with disabilities are faring. I particularly consider the struggles for children with Autism as they will not only be distressed by the circumstance along with everyone else but they cannot be sparked into instant compliance and a rush to run to the car by the alarmed exclamation of their parents that the hill is on fire and we need to leave NOW. Typically developing children as young as 3 years old can understand the urgency of the situation by subliminally noticing the fear on their parents faces, the intensity of their voices, the quickness and rigidity of their movements and the directness of their instructions. Parents will call their children to them, gather everyone around, state the danger, tell their children the immediate plan of action and all will spring into motion to get out of the house and into the car quickly and safely. The child with autism and cognitive disability will not only miss the subliminal cues of voice tone, intensity, and body language in their parent’s behaviors and words, but those who have not been taught to stop what they are doing and follow the directions to, “Come here.” may fight the parents attempts to quickly remove them from the house and may run away.
As a young teacher I was exposed to the importance of teaching children with autism to come when called by a family in a coworker’s class who had a fire in the house and when mom called the children in a panic two of the three ran to her immediately but her autistic child hid in his room. Thankfully the mother was able to find her son in time to get him out of the house safely but that incident sparked a focus in us all on writing safety goals into the students IEP’s. We focused especially on the ability to come to an adult when called from as close as a few feet away to as far away as out of site in another room. This is not an easy task to teach but when thought out and trained systematically it became no more difficult to teach than any other task. Small steps, and persistence in teaching the command, “Come Here,” in consistent fashion made it possible to train many children with autism to come when called.
These times of struggle are reminders of why we teach children items of compliance. It is not a matter of power over. It is simply a matter of safety. In the day to day lives within families it is often easier to simply accept that a child with autism is not as capable of following verbal instructions as are other children. The tendency to avoid a tantrum by allowing the child to take their time in transitions, lead adults in a request of “5 more minutes please,” or avoid leaving their desired activity by simply ignoring their parents is common and often times appropriate. But, time and effort taken to specifically teach consistent, predictable, routine expectations for children with autism to immediately stop what they are doing and come to an adult when called may just save their lives. Hoping it will never be necessary isn’t realistic. Hope for the best but please prepare for the worst. Please teach your children to, “COME HERE!”
I wish all victims of the fires and all other disasters health, safety and quick recovery.
Colette McNeil
Author of Understanding the Challenge of “NO” for Children with Autism
