Guest Author - Anne Dolan

Airlines today have had some very high profile incidents concerning kids with autism.
Wherein the kids have actually been asked to leave the flights, because of behavior.
No-one seems to have a single answer about what would better enable these kids
with autism and their parents to travel. The airlines suggest that parents should have
given the airline advance notice about their child's airway travel. Parents have answered
that advance notice of a disability is not a requirement for airway travel. The main problem
here seems to be communication for all parties concerned, most importantly for the child
with autism.

The original problem of intractable behavior is caused by the child's inablity to communicate
due to the nature of autism as a disease that prevents a individual from communication expressive and receptive. Then the answer to helping a child with autism lies in assisting them with communication through an alternative form of communication. Airlines are legally required by the FAA to service passengers with disabilities for success. Specifically part 382 of the FAA guidelines requires that "air carriers and their employees" must provide passengers with disability related services.

Why then aren't alternative forms of communication to assist kids with the communication
disability of autism offered? Quite possibly because in many cases even in educational systems today, able bodied kids with communication disabilities are not viewed as disabled and are not given alternative communication systems. Then the airlines can not be held at fault for this common misconception.

However, what is common at airports and many public places today are picture symbols that
communicate planes, thoroughfares, food, gift-shops, etc... The only difference between this
airport picture system and the picture system for kids with autism is the fact that miniaturized picture symbols are used together on sentence strips to represent tasks. The only thing left to be done then is to marry the airport symbol system already in place to a webpage where parents of kids with autism could download it for sentence strips. If standard airport symbols for airway travel tasks were available the child with autism could be familiarized with the pictures by the parent months in advance. When a child began to act out, instead of being offered toys, or food that signals regression the child could be offered the familiar symbol task which would put them in control of themselves. While the flight attendant's familiarity with the picture system language would enable flight attendants to reinforce a parent. Most importantly all concerned with the airway travel of children with communication disorders should be trained with the most effective initiation of communication grasping the child’s hand and helping the child to begin the action of communication. No other method for a child with communication disability is as correct, because if you hand the child a toy or food to indicate regression you now are on demand to the baby dialog of the unconditional love test. Comparatively, the familiar prompt of a hand grasped combined with new task speeds the initiation of the commmunication process. Once the child’s hand has been grasped and guided thru picture task selection and fixed with velcro to the sentence strip deep focus has been achieved with range of motion.

FAA Guidelines. http://cebuonwheels.tripod.com/FAA%20Guidelines.htm

Mehl-Madrona, Lewis M.D., Ph.D. Autism Treatments
intensive educational and behavioral therapy. 2008.
www.healing-arts.org/children/educational.htm

Gans, Steven. How Do Therapists Motivate Children with Autism?
March 21, 2008. http://autism.about.com/od/alllaboutaba/f/abareinforcer.htm