Positively Autism: Computer Software for Autism

This article is from Positively Autism and not written by me.......but so worth sharing!

Positively Autism: Computer Software for Autism: I've generated a list of computer software programs for children and adults with autism. This list is not necessarily complete, so please fe...

Positively Autism: How the iPad Helps People with Autism Communicate ...

Positively Autism: How the iPad Helps People with Autism Communicate ...

Airports and Special Needs Travel

Airports and Special Needs Travel: A Complete Guide

MAY 03, 2012 09:32 AM | TZVI

When travelling by plane, a good part of your trip is spent at airports. In fact, on many trips you spend more time at an airport than you do flying.

When traveling with a child who has special needs every step you take needs to be very carefully planned.

In previous posts of the Special Needs Travel Series we focused on planning your trip, finding a special needs travel agency, and packing for the plane.

In this post we give you five steps to get through the airport as fast and efficiently as possible.

Step One: Airport Parking

All parking lots have parking spaces reserved for individuals with disabilities. However if you do not have a Disabled Person Parking Tags or License Plates you are not allowed to park in these spots. Some airports provide free or discounted parking for cars with a disabled persons placard or license plate.

A few select airports offer special parking accommodations to any traveler with special needs regardless if they have a special license plate.  Among the airports offering special parking options are Atlanta Hartsfield – Jackson International Airport and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Check your airport’s website for information about parking for individuals with special needs. Alternatively consider getting a ride to the airport and skip the parking hassle.

Step Two: Drop Your Bags

To save time you should check in and select your seats before heading to the airport, however you will still need to check your bags.

Skip the long lines and check your bags curbside, Skycap will take your bags for your and print out your boarding pass. This will lighten your load and let you focus on your child.

Step Three: Security

Going through security can be the most challenging part of the airport experience. Long lines, sensory overload and the need to take of shoes and other items can make this segment very stressful. Here are some tips that can help:

Prepare your child
Prepare your child as much as possible with whatever means possible. Social Stories, visuals, and practice will help your child know what to expect.

Special lines
All airports now have a special line that families can use. Use this line to avoid a longer wait and reduce the risk of a meltdown. If there is no such line or the line is too long explain your situation to a TSA officer and they should be able to accommodate your needs.

Know Your Rights
The Transportation Security Administration has a comprehensive section about children with special needs. Before you head to the airport make sure to read it. The site covers everything from security procedures for children with special needs, to medical equipment, medications and more.

Step Four: Walking to the gate

A few tips when heading to the gate:

Make a Pit Stop

This may be a good time to make a bathroom stop. Most airports will have a family bathroom in the main terminal area. Once you head to your gate it may not be so easy to find a family bathroom.

Light Displays

Some airports require you to go through an underground tunnel to get to your gate. Many of these tunnels feature a light and sound display. This may prove difficult for children with sensory issues. Some airports (DTW is one), have a button that you can press to turn of the display for a period of five minutes. If your local airport does not have that option, it may be a good idea to prepare your child and bring noise cancelling earphones.

Shuttle Carts

Some airports can be miles long. To make your walk to the gate easier you can ask for special assistance for a ride to your gate. Some airports have golf cart-like vehicles that can shuttle you quickly to your gate. If your airport does not offer such a service a wheelchair will be offered instead. You can ask for this assistance when checking in or look for a airport information desk and ask for assistance there.

Step Five: Extra Time

If you have extra time before your flight here are some useful tips.

Airport Play Areas

These days almost all airports have play areas. Some areas are small enclosed areas with toddler toys while others are large elaborate production that can keep your child busy for hours. Check your airports website to see where it is located in the terminal and if it is worth stopping by.

Airline Lounges

Airport Lounges used to be available only to frequent travelers and big important business people.  Times have changed and lounges are more accessible now.  Lounges usually provide comfortable seating areas, televisions, free snacks and a quiet relaxing atmosphere.

All airlines offer day passes to their lounge for about $50 (each airline has individual policies about how many children you can bring in with you at no extra charge). So if your flight is delayed or canceled an airline lounge may be a good option.

Go for a walk

You will be spending a bunch of hours cramped in an airplane. Go for a walk around the airport and explore all the new sounds and sights.

Find an empty gate

Look for an empty gate with no other passengers. This will give you a chance to relax a little while giving your child some extra space to move around and be themselves. Park on the floor play a game and enjoy!

Bonus: Disability Pages for the Worlds Biggest Airports

Below you can find over 60 airport web pages for special assistance and accessibility information for travelers with disabilities.

Domestic Airports

Atlanta, GA Austin, TX Baltimore, MD Boston, MA Charlotte, NC Chicago, IL (O’Hare) Chicago, IL (Midway) Cincinnati, KY Cleveland, OH Dallas/Fort Worth, TX Denver, CO Detroit, MI Fort Lauderdale, FL Honolulu, HI Indianapolis, IN

Kansas City, MO Los Angeles, CA Memphis, TN Miami, FL Milwaukee, WI Minneapolis/St Paul, MN Nashville, TN New Orleans, LA New York, NY (JFK) New York, NY  (LGA) Newark/New York, NJ Oakland, CA Orange County, CA Orlando, FL Philadelphia, PA

Phoenix, AZ Pittsburgh, PA Portland, OR Raleigh, NC Salt Lake City, UT San Antonio, TX San Diego, CA San Francisco, CA San Jose, CA Seattle, WA St. Louis, MO Tampa, FL Washington, D.C (Dulles) Washington, DC, (Reagan)

International Airports

London Heathrow Airport Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport Hong Kong International Airport Dubai International Airport Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Frankfurt Airport Singapore Changi Airport Madrid-Barajas Airport London Gatwick Airport Munich Airport

Tokyo Narita International Airport Zürich AirportVancouver International Airport Vienna Airport Toronto Pearson International Airport Copenhagen Airport Dublin Airport Brussels Airport Manchester AirportMontreal Trudeau Airport

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Transition to Adulthood

"Transition to adulthood" is a complex and ongoing process that starts as soon as a child is born and continues as the child becomes an adolescent,  to early adult life and then through the stages of adulthood.  While this process is complicated at best for any person, the individual with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) faces unique challenges that require specialized considerations. This set of guides will help the user understand these challenges and raise awareness of these important considerations

A critical time for transition planning is in the early years of middle school through the first few years following graduation from high school. This time period is the focal point of the Transition to Adulthood guides and will assist the individual with ASD and his or her team in reviewing the issues of adulthood related to employment, postsecondary education and adult living during these years. Implications for the individual with ASD to consider are highlighted throughout. Identification of  resources and many active links to important information are provided.

Resources Guides

What a great story ~ I LOVE feel good stories like this! ~ JH

After Six Decades, Once-Institutionalized Man Reunited With Family

By NANCY BARTLEY, THE SEATTLE TIMES

May 2, 2012

(MCT) — Jerry Wooliver was a little boy in high-top baby shoes when he was taken from his mother and siblings and sent to a state institution. He never saw his family again, but for 61 years they lived on in hazy memories.

Jerry Wooliver, center right, meets sisters Julie Martin, left, Karen Newman and Janis MacPherson for the first time. Wooliver was born with cerebral palsy and was removed from his mother's home 61 years ago. Martin and MacPherson are twins. (Alan Berner/Seattle Times/MCT)

On Saturday, the 67-year-old Auburn, Wash. man — who in 1951 was sent away because he had cerebral palsy — was reunited with part of his family in an emotional meeting at the social-service organization where he works in the office.

“Oh my, I can’t believe it!” said Karen Newman as she walked into the Total Living Concept (TLC) office, leaned down and hugged Wooliver. “Hi, sweetie.”

“Hi, Uncle Jerry. I’m your niece,” said her daughter, Shauna Rohloff, giving him a hug.

Wooliver’s sisters, Julie Martin and Janis MacPherson, kissed him on the cheek.

In all, three sisters, two nieces and one nephew came to meet him, as well as his friends and TLC helpers.

With tears in her eyes, Wooliver’s friend Cathy Hilde stood watching the siblings reunite.

“I’m speechless, just seeing the happiness. They will bring an enormous amount of completeness to each other.”

The family comes apart

Frances Wooliver Fortesque was struggling to feed her three children after her first husband left and her second was in prison for forging checks to buy food, Newman said. Fortesque followed the Eastern Washington orchard crops, spraying trees and picking apples, but by May 4, 1951, Okanogan County health officials had come to Tonasket to get her middle child, Jerry.

In the documents they filed with the state to take custody of him, officials said the living conditions for the family were deplorable, and that they were taking him because he was “mentally deficient due to a birth injury,” and because his mother couldn’t afford to care for him.

No other children were removed from the family.

A few years and three more pregnancies later, Fortesque died of untreated strep throat. The remaining children were given up for adoption and lost contact with one another.

In the 1970s Newman found an older relative who told her about Jerry, who had been put into institutional care before she was born. The relative told her Jerry was so profoundly disabled he had no ability to understand or communicate. Newman decided it was futile to try to find him.

In the meantime, Wooliver spent 40 years of his life in a series of institutions and nursing homes, times so distressing he now says that if he ever had to go back, “I’d kill myself.”

Filling in his history

The steps to restoring the family tree began a few years ago when Wooliver’s cousin, Joyce Dalton of Conway, Ark., got in touch with a Tulsa, Okla., woman who does family research at no charge. Dalton knew that many of her cousins had been adopted after their mother’s death and wanted to get in touch. The first one she found was Wooliver.

In 1990, he became a client of the nonprofit TLC, which helps people with disabilities live at home, and his friend and assistant Sid Names recalled the day Wooliver got Dalton’s call.

“He went crazy,” Names said. “Jerry has always felt kind of a loss because he didn’t have a mother and didn’t have a father.”

Dalton sent Wooliver letters and photos, and TLC’s Nanette Vanderford put them in a notebook and worked with Dalton to find Wooliver’s other relatives.

Slowly, the holes in Wooliver’s past began to fill, some with sweetness, some with sorrow.

He had sisters, brothers, parents and family history. From collected documents, his family came to life: Missouri-born Frances, who once dressed in a blue silk blouse, blue skirt, bobby socks and high heels, a blue ribbon in her hair, all to meet her little sister at the Tonasket bus station; grandmother Nora, who confessed concern about the sufferings of a beloved daughter — a child of uncertain paternity; grandfather Quince, as sour as the fruit for which he was named and often vengeful.

Before Wooliver learned of his family, “I was nobody,” he said.

Now he has a home and on the wall are family photos: His mother is holding him, looking into the lens of the future with a solemn face.

At the TLC office the other day, Wooliver’s sisters looked at the photo for the first time, too.

“Thank you, Jerry,” MacPherson said. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com.
On Twitter @BartleyNews.

© 2012 The Seattle Times
Visit The Seattle Times at www.seattletimes.com
Distributed by MCT Information Services

Final Input Sought On DSM Autism Changes

By MICHELLE DIAMENT

May 3, 2012

The panel responsible for crafting new diagnostic criteria for autism, intellectual disability and other disorders is seeking public comment for a third and final time.

The American Psychiatric Association said Wednesday that it will accept public comments now through June 15 on proposed changes for the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The first revision in more than a decade to what’s considered the bible of mental health disorders, the new edition of the manual is expected to be published in May 2013.

Among the most controversial proposals is a dramatic change to the definition of autism. Those behind the DSM are looking to fold autistic disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder and pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified under one umbrella diagnosis of “autism spectrum disorders,” with diagnosticians indicating a level of severity associated with an individual’s condition.

In order to qualify under the new criteria, individuals would have to exhibit specific types of deficits in socialization as well as behavior.

The change has many in the autism community worried after a study released earlier this year found that a significant number of people currently diagnosed with autism may be stripped of the label under the new definition, potentially leaving them without needed services.

Nonetheless, the DSM panel tasked with revising the autism diagnosis is standing firm on their proposal. In a commentary published in the April issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry the group said that preliminary results from field tests on the proposed changes found the criteria to be “sensitive and specific.”

In addition to the autism changes, the DSM committee has also proposed replacing the term “mental retardation” with “intellectual developmental disorder,” reflecting a shift that many government entities and education institutions have already undertaken in recent years. What’s more, the criteria for the condition would also be altered to focus more heavily on mental abilities and adaptive functioning skills rather than IQ alone.

Other conditions slated to be changed in the forthcoming DSM include those related to communication, socialization, motor skills and behavior.

Two previous DSM comment periods in 2010 and 2011 have already netted nearly 10,800 responses, which led to some alterations to the proposals, officials with the American Psychiatric Association said.

“The comments we have received over the past two years have helped sharpen our focus, not only on the strongest research and clinical evidence to support DSM-5 criteria but on the real-world implications of these changes,” said John Oldham, president of the organization.

Once the current public comment period comes to a close, those behind the DSM revision will incorporate any additional feedback in their final recommendations which are expected to go before the psychiatric organization’s board in December, officials said.

~ THE E.C. VOICE ~ Special Edition May 2012 The NC Partners in Policymaking program is currently accepting applications for the 2012 session.   Partners in Policymaking™ is a leadership training program designed for adults with disabilities and parents of young children with developmental disabilities. The program teaches leadership skills, and the process of developing positive partnerships with elected officials and other individuals who make the policy decisions about services that you and your family use. Partners is about systems change - creating, working towards and achieving a vision of shared values about people with disabilities. It is based on the belief that the most effective and enduring public policy decisions are made by the people who need and use services in partnership with elected officials and their policymakers.  It is about becoming confident in yourself, competent in the knowledge and information you will receive, and comfortable in sharing the life experiences and expertise you bring to the program For more information: The application in PDF can be printed out, completed and mailed to the Advocacy Institute. Save a copy for your records. Return to:  partnersadmin@nccdd.org or  Advocacy Institute, Inc.  Partners in Policymaking  PO Box 480160, Charlotte, NC 28269 Any questions may be directed to Freida Moore at  Advocacy Institute 919-369-4569, or partnersadmin@nccdd.org Application must be submitted by 5/11/12.

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