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7288
Transportation and Mobility for Individuals with ASD: Understanding the Options [CRC Session]
Friday, July 25, 2014: 1:00 PM-2:15 PM
207 (Indiana Convention Center)
The job’s not perfect if you can’t get there. Housing choices are affected if one can’t go beyond the doorstep. Transportation and mobility are as vital as where one lives and works. Both significantly impact a person’s quality of life. This session focuses on transportation services, supports, accommodations and trainings.
This session will be a review why transportation and mobility are some important for an individual’s quality of life. Often the focus is on where an individual will work and where they will live while leaving out how they will commute between the two as well as how they will access other important aspects of community life. Whether one is looking to independently drive, take an agency van to a supported program, or walk to the corner store the need to get from point A to point B remains the same. Too often school, agencies and families overlook the critical aspect of access to transportation and the appropriate accommodations, supports, procedures and training required to navigate. This focus of this session look at various options that are available for individuals with ASD. Methods to integrate transportation and mobility training into educational or adult programming will be discussed. A review of how to find various transportation options in one’s community will be reviewed followed by individual rights regarding access to transportation.
The session will review the following areas:
1. Transportation Services to be reviewed
- Public Transit Services
- Disability transit pass
- Taxi programs
- Paratransit services
- ADA Accessible Transportation – what it allows, requirements, pros and cons of system
- Community Paratransit/Transportation – what they are, what they may offer
- Other for hire medical services
- Human Services Transportation – often provided by day program
- TMAs – Transportation Management Associations – what they are and what they may offer.
2. Support/Training Services
- Driver Training by Certified Driver Rehabilitation Specialists – CDRS
- Can supplement, assist regular driver ed programs
- Can assess current ability to drive - both physically and cognitively
- Offered by various agencies
- Agencies that can help with transit and travel assessments as related to work goals
- Travel Training
- Type of travel training - one-on-one, small group, train the trainers
- TMAs – some offer small group
- Private trainings by OTs and others
- Travel Trainers that specialize in pedestrian skills
3. Rights to transit/transportation
- Legal rights
- Accommodations
- Assessments
- The Individuals rights and responsibilities
- The transit provider/service providers rights and responsibilities
- Self-Advocacy
Learning Objectives:
- 1. Review of the vital role transportation plays in an individual’s quality of life – especially for individuals with disabilities. Aside from barriers related to one’s disability there are regional and economic barriers that individuals must understand and plan for.
- 2. Provide participants with an understanding of various transportation services, supports and training services within one’s community. We will review how to find the appropriate instructors for driving and travel trainers for pedestrian and transit skills.
Content Area: Transition Planning and Options for Adulthood
Presenter:
Cecilia Feeley, Ph.D.
Transportation Autism Project Manager
Rutgers University Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation
Cecilia Feeley, Ph.D., is the Transportation Autism Project Manager at the Rutgers’ Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation. She solely focuses on transportation issues for adults with ASD working on numerous projects involving transportation, transit and mobility. Her Doctorate in Transportation Engineering focused on the paratransit needs of autistic adults.