The Holidays and Autism: Challenges During the Holiday Season for Children Who Tend to Wander

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STUART, Fla., Nov. 23, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – The hol­i­day sea­son can be a par­tic­u­larly chal­leng­ing time for both chil­dren with autism and their fam­i­lies. The value of plan­ning for the hol­i­days can­not be over­es­ti­mated for those with sen­sory sen­si­tiv­i­ties, who thrive on rou­tine, and are eas­ily dis­ori­ented. The hol­i­days are filled with sights, sounds, and smells. The aver­age house­hold is turned into a busy, fran­tic, fes­tive place. The stores are brightly lit, exces­sively noisy with hol­i­day music and busy with shop­pers rush­ing in every direc­tion. All of these sud­den and dra­matic changes for a child on the spec­trum can eas­ily cre­ate a sen­sory over­load, mak­ing the hol­i­days a dif­fi­cult time for both the child with autism and their parents.

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These par­ents need our sup­port and encour­age­ment because they are humans that have been given an assign­ment intended for saints. Autism affects each indi­vid­ual dif­fer­ently and at dif­fer­ent lev­els of sever­ity. The fol­low­ing sta­tis­tics helps us to bet­ter under­stand why thought­fully plan­ning for the hol­i­days is so important.

• 1 out of 91 chil­dren has been diag­nosed Autistic
• 92% of Autis­tic chil­dren wander
• The num­ber one cause of death among Autis­tic chil­dren that wan­der is drowning

Remem­ber, there is no right or wrong answers and what works for one fam­ily may not work for another. But by reduc­ing or elim­i­nat­ing poten­tial trig­gers for wan­der­ing and adding an effec­tive pro­gram to quickly locate and res­cue indi­vid­u­als who tend to wan­der, you will keep your child safe and give your­self the peace of mind you deserve.

Project Life­saver Inter­na­tional is the pre­mier orga­ni­za­tion nation-wide pro­vid­ing law enforce­ment and first respon­ders with the train­ing and tech­nol­ogy to quickly find indi­vid­u­als with cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders who have wan­dered. Fol­low­ing the sig­nal from a small trans­mit­ter placed on the patient, first respon­ders from “Mem­ber Agen­cies” who have been trained and cer­ti­fied by Project Life­saver quickly track to the loca­tion of the wan­derer. Recov­ery times for indi­vid­u­als in the Project Life­saver pro­gram aver­ages 30 min­utes, com­pared to nine hours for indi­vid­u­als with­out a track­ing sys­tem. To date Project Lifesaver’s suc­cess rate is 100%.

Click here to fol­low us on Face­book You-Tube at Plifesaver99

For more infor­ma­tion about Project Lifesaver’s pro­gram and tech­nol­ogy go to www.projectlifesaver.org

SOURCE Project Life­saver International

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http://www.projectlifesaver.org

Arti­cle source: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-holidays–autism-challenges-during-the-holiday-season-for-children-who-tend-to-wander-134397678.html

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