Traveling with Autism 2

I found an article when I was on CNN.com that discussed traveling with children who are on the spectrum. They began discussing the difficulties of traveling with typical children. Children in general don't like long lines, hate to sit still, they can cry, and spill things. Unfortunately, people around children are often not sympathetic toward these behaviors as common as they are. Knowing this, it can be even more difficult on parents whose children are on the spectrum. Take these behaviors and maximize them for children on the spectrum. They are affected socially and do not understand that this is not socially acceptable and they are attracting the attention of others. I hope that parents of these children have the patience to handle these situations. I always try to be sympathetic and show my understanding towards parents when dealing with a difficult child because I know it's not always their fault. I had written earlier about how important preparation is when it comes to traveling with a child on the spectrum. CNN brings up that no matter how much preparation you do, the slightest thing can set off a child and there's nothing you can do about it. This goes for children in general. There was a mother who asked to get off of an American Eagle flight because her 2 year-old son who is on the spectrum was having a melt-down. Apparently, this situation "caused an uproar in the blogosphere." They referenced the recommendations that Delta has implemented and that I have discussed in a previous posting. I am glad that CNN wrote about this and that more people are doing research about autism. The more we find out and the more we inform people about it, the more sympathetic and understanding people can be.

http://articles.cnn.com/2008-08-04/travel/autism.traveling_1_autistic-kids-autistic-child-parent?_s=PM:TRAVEL

Traveling with Autism

After hearing what Heather had to say about traveling with her son, Peyton, who has autism, this got me interested to see what other families had to say about traveling with children who are on the spectrum. I decided to look on the website www.autismspeaks.org since they recently had a walk to raise money for research. I found a booklet that was also published on the website entitled: Ten Strategies for Traveling with a Child with Autism. The first tip was a generic tip that worked for anyone's vacation, preparation. In regards to traveling with a child with autism, the preparation can be a little different and more in-depth. The author of this booklet discussed how you need to take into consideration specifics of your child and what they can and cannot handle. For example, she talked about how her son has issues with noises so they packed ear plugs to carry around with him in case the noise level was out of his comfort zone. THe third strategy specifically discussed amusement parks, especially Walt Disney World. I discussed in my first blog about the wonderful accommodations that WDW has to offer. One of the features that this Mother really enjoyed was something I was even aware of. There is a feature on their website that allows you to watch a preview video of several rides. She said that this alleviated any fear that her son had about the trip. She goes on to discuss car travel, visiting big cities, air travel, and visiting family members. She had a lot of information to offer and I found it to be very helpful. Here is a direct link to her booklet:
http://www.autismspeaks.org/sites/default/files/documents/family-services/schlosser.pdf

Peyton 2

I wanted to know more about how they try to keep Peyton as comfortable as possible in regards to his environment. It is typical with some disabilities, especially autism, for people to need consistency and routines. Any deviation from this can really have an affect on them and sometimes result in an outburst. Heather offered some good insight to this.


"I guess we also always make sure to bring all his sleeping gear with us.......so he feels like he is at home. He has a blow up mattress on his bed. So we bring his mattress, his blankets, his pillow, and his two stuffed animals he sleeps with. He has a very strict bedtime ritual. So we have to make sure it is as close to "like home" as we can get it. He doesn't enjoy sleeping other places than HIS bed. So we pretty much bring it all with us........otherwise, he gets very upset! 
Oh, we also have to pack a pump to blow up his bed......"

I like how she brought up the idea that he needs to feel like he is at home. Peyton is lucky to have such caring parents who go to such lengths to make him comfortable and loved. Bringing all of this stuff can also take up a lot of space if traveling by car or if you are packing for an airplane. I would imagine this would have an affect on your mode of transportation. 

Meet Peyton

Another family member of theirs has a son, Peyton, who was recently diagnosed with autism. Mark's Mom got some questions from me to ask them about how they deal with this when it comes to their travels. Peyton just turned 6 last month and has come a long way already with his autism. The thought that concerned me the most was how they dealt with the routines. I know how important routines are to people with certain disabilities, such as autism. It would obviously be a hard transition for the child to be in an unfamiliar environment and to not have familiar things around them. Below is a description of what it is like to travel with a young boy with autism that is direct from the Mother. 


"Well when Peyton was younger, he was more sensitive. So we couldn't really go anywhere with lots of people or noise. But the only thing we have to really plan for now it his food. Whenever we are traveling we have to pack an entire bag of Peyton's food. If we are going to eat at a restaurant, we always have to check the menu. I will always look at the website to see if they offer gluten free food......or other food that would work for him. If we are unsure about him eating at the place then we will have to pack a meal to bring along for him. Thats really the only major issue we have with traveling with him. Oh, I guess we also have to take some kind of media device. He still tends to get a little overwhelmed in places with lots of things going on. So in order to sooth him and make him tune out all the commotion, we will give him his iPad or Leapster video game. So I guess I would say that we never leave the house without food & entertainment for him. Till about a year ago he did have issues with constipation. So we always had to bring his meds with us. We had to bring tons of diapers, wipes, juice, his meds, and suppositories."


This sounds like an awful lot of work that can be quite stressful on the family. I can only imagine the ordeal it must be getting everything ready. I wonder what would happen if you forget something? How does this affect the child? There are so many more things to consider on top of the normal level of stress that can be involved in planning a vacation for your family. 

Sammy 2

Even though Lish's children have grown and gone, she is now taking care of another child. She said that depending on the situation he can act between the ages of 4 and 10. We got on the topic of the shenanigans he's pulled through his life. He was quite the prankster growing up and this has still continued now. Lish has gotten better with controlling him but you can't your eyes off of him. His father was better at controlling him but then he passed and his Mother did whatever he wanted. She was a small woman and he could intimidate her. They ate at McDonald's sometimes 3 times a day. Lish said that this has been hard to break. Every time they get in the car he wanted to go there. When he was younger he took his Mom's silverware and stuck it in the dryer because he liked the clanking sound it made. Another time he took the beaters to her mixer, walked out beside the road and put them in the street. He would wait for cars to run over them so he could hear them clang on the highway. They also had to move the switch on the tv(before remotes) because he would change the channel and then run from the room.

Sammy lived at Royer Greaves  School for the Blind for 15 years. It is located in Paoli, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. They would drive up there once a month to visit him and he would come home for all major holidays. They tried to teach him Braille and how to live independently but he is labeled Trainable no educable. Here is the link to the school which is still in operation. http://www.royer-greaves.org/index.html

Lish said that she can remember going to King's Island with Sammy back in the 80's. She said that they have lines for handicap people to go ahead of the line but they never used these. They wanted Sammy to feel as normal as possible. They didn't want to give him any special treatment.

Meet Sammy

As everyone said, your blog may take an unexpected turn. I was talking to my boyfriend's mother about my blog and describing to her what I had to do. She mentioned to me that several family members are a part of a family with persons with disabilities. She got me in touch with them and it has been very interesting to say the least. The first person I got in touch with was her sister, Lish. Her sister has a very unique story regarding disability. Her husband's brother is developmentally delayed and also blind. He was born in November of 1953 prematurely. His mother smoked through all of her pregnancies. Then when he was born he was put in an incubator and there was a nurse who turned the oxygen levels very high on all of the babies in that room. All of them were damaged in some way to varying degrees. He has no retinas and has never been able to see. His mother took care of him all her life but recently passed away. Lish and her husband promised to take care of Sammy when she died. They recently moved in to his mother's house so as not to move Sammy away from a stable and familiar environment.  He also has OCD and some behavioral issues. Mentally, Sammy is only about 4 or 5 years old even though he is physically 58. He is fairly healthy and can pretty much take care of himself. He can dress himself, brush his teeth, bathe himself, feed himself, and shave. There are a lot of things he can do but a lot that he can't. he cannot read Braille although he did attend Royer Greaves School for the Blind when he was younger. He can't tie shoes so they only buy him ones with Velcro straps. I will be discussing more with Lish in the future about him in regards to vacations.

Exploring Behavior Issues

I decided to look more into traveling with behavior problems as opposed to just physical disabilities. A majority of the information I found dealt with physical disabilities but what about the families who have children with behavior issues. I would imagine the scariest part of travel is the unknown. Children with behavior problems can be set off by anything at any time. I visited a website that I frequently visit for other questions, About.com. I decided to explore what they had to say about behavior issues. They had information on managing your child's behavior while traveling. It wasn't much but it had a list of suggestions on how to keep your child busy to avoid outbursts. THey suggested packing extra activities and such for children to do to keep busy. I think that this would be a good idea when traveling with any child. One of their suggestions was to allow time for physical activity to manage hyperactivity. My first thought was "how can you manage to fit this in if you are travelling on a plane". There was not a response for this unfortunately. Perhaps exploration for another day. One link they had on the site that I found interesting was a link to a list of "101 things to do when there's nothing to do". It had an extensive list of activities that could be fun to do with a child. Some of these ideas could work on a plane such as thumb wars, 20 questions, I spy, counting games, etc. Even though these weren't targeted towards travel, you could use this list to assist in keeping engaged during travel.

Website: http://learningdisabilities.about.com/od/behaviorproblems/tp/backpacksfortravel.htm
101 Things to do: http://specialchildren.about.com/od/behaviorstrategies/a/timewasters.htm

Flying with Wheels

One of my classmates has a sister who was in an accident that left her paralyzed. She has been checking out my blog and was curious to know about the actual transportation factors that you come across when traveling with a person with a disability. I had found vacation spots and some accommodations for when you get there but what about how to get there? I googled transportation for persons with disabilities for vacation and came across some interesting things. One website was very helpful but needs some work on the layout, some links were covering the page...The main website was entitled Disabled Travelers. On the left were Accessible Travel links that led you to specific areas depending on the type of transportation. The home page introduced you to what sort of information you could find. Just like on the other website I found, this one also offered a list of travel agents and broke it down by region and type of disability. There was also a link for Airline Travel Info which took you to the crazy, link covered page. The links covering the page were hard to see but they were the various airlines. If you clicked on any airline name, it took you directly to the airlines disability information page. I clicked on Delta's link and explored a bit fo what they had to offer. They had a list of accommodations ranging from service animals, pregnant travelers, peanut allergies and oxygen users. Back to the Disabled Travelers website there was a hyperlink to Mobility Air Transport which is a non-profit organization working to better airline travel for persons with disabilities.

Something very interesting that I found on the website was a link for Travel Companions. I just assumed that this was advice or information for those traveling with the person with the disability. I was mistaken. This link offered you hyperlinks to websites that offered the option of taking a companion with you on your vacation to assist you and offer company. One of the websites I explored, offered profiles of the various companions. Most of them were in the healthcare industry, not surprising. What an interesting idea!

Below are the links to the various websites I have discussed.
Disabled Traveler: http://www.disabledtravelers.com/
Delta Information page: http://www.delta.com/planning_reservations/special_travel_needs/services_travelers_disabilities/index.jsp
Travel Companions: http://www.disabilitytravel.com/companions.htm

Accessing Ability

Hello again! 


Today I chose to do some more research on the Access-Able website that grew from the Travelin' Talk website. This webpage was easier for me to explore since I didn't need to be a member of the website in order to view it more thoroughly. The website is very easy to navigate and is broken down into several categories that you can choose from to help guide you through. When you first enter the website, it tells you what information and resources are available. The list includes information and resources about: travel with a special need, disability magazines, access guides for cities, resorts and attractions, wheelchair or scooter rentals, and accessible transportation and more! They have links you can click on that will take you to specific areas such as "summer fun", "cruise ships", "travel tales" which offers good and bad stories from travelers about what to expect when traveling to certain destinations. I chose to look at some of these tales to see if they were helpful at all. When you click on "travel tales", it then takes you to a page that has the stories broken down by regions and each of the stories has a title which you then click on to read the entire story. I read a story entitled "Disaster at Sea". This family went on a cruise ship and had a horrible experience. The handicap rooms that were available were few and far between and were not up to snuff with what they actually required with having to use a wheelchair. The elevator barely held the wheelchair and their windows were blocked by lifeboats. Another resource that they offered that I think would be very helpful when trying to plan a vacation with a family with a person with a disability, was a list of travel agents who are experienced in planning vacation for just such families. During my research, it has been uplifting to learn how many great resources are available out there for families who have persons with disabilities. I only hope that these families are aware of just what's out there for them. Here is the link for the website I explored today: http://access-able.com/graphical_index.html

Let's go back to the basics

After posting my original thoughts, I realized I probably should have started with a more general idea of traveling with families with disabilities. How do families go about choosing vacation spots? Can they go to the places they always have been if the disability is new to the family? Is there a place that offers ideas of disability friendly vacation spots that families can look to for guidance? I chose to begin my quest by simply using google to search for "families with disabilities traveling". I came across a very interesting and unique website.
http://www.travelintalk.net/pages/about.phtml
The website is called Travelin' Talk Network. In order to view most of the website you need to become a member of the site. I tried to become a member so I could get to explore the site more but I was having difficulty connecting to the database. It was created in 1995 when a man was going cross country and needed to find out places he could go to if he needed assistance with his wheelchair lift. The website grew from there and now has 1000's of members who can come together for advice on vacation spots. The website is now run by a couple who love to travel. The wife has MS. They have now grown into another website called Access-Able Travel Source. I will be exploring this website for my next post.

Walt Disney World Accommodations

Hi guys! I have chosen to explore accessibility options available for families who love to travel as much as I do with my family. Since no one in my family has a disability, this has never been something that I have put much thought to. When it was mentioned as a choice of topic, I began wondering how families with children with disabilities travel. Do they choose certain vacation spots because they know they are friendly for those with disabilities? The first place I chose to explore was Walt Disney World. It is my families favorite vacation spot. I have been there numerous times and I haven't paid much attention to the facilities and accommodations made for those travel with a person with a disability. Obviously, the first place I chose to look was on WDW's site to find some answers. I discovered that they have a large number of accommodations for persons with disabilities. Below is the link for "Disney's Disability Info" website. 


http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/disabgeneral.htm


The site was very organized. It had choices at the top that would lead you straight to the accommodations made for specific disabilities. I thought this was a great idea so that you didn't have to scroll through information that doesn't apply to you personally. Once you click on the link, it takes you to a new webpage that then breaks down that specific disability into more specific parts so you can find what will be available for you. I chose to explore within the "hearing" category. Once in there I clicked on "handheld captioning" since that caught my eye. They offer electronic handheld devices for persons who are hearing impaired. "The Handheld Captioning units receive infrared signals from transmitters located at the rides/attractions. These transmitters prompt the unit (similar to a Personal Data Assistant - PDA) to display the illuminated text. Once it's activated at Guest Relations, it will automatically turn on when receiving a signal." It lists every park that they are available at and what you use them for within that park. That seems like an awesome idea. That way you are able to participate in all of the activities and not miss something simply because it is verbalized. This is something I may not have ever thought of.