The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

This presentation addresses wandering and elopement for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to help parents keep their children safe. We will address the nature of wandering, school-based strategies for preventing it, partnerships with local law enforcement for prevention, and describe how law enforcement can conduct an effective search. Children with autism spectrum disorders tend to wander or elope far more frequently than typically developing children. When a child wanders from the safety of the home or school or from the immediate vicinity of their parents or other caregivers when out in the community, this opens the door to many forms of endangerment.  Sadly, a child who has wandered may be drawn to water and drown or venture too close to traffic or other hazards and be injured or killed, or, if not found quickly, subject to exposure, often with life-threatening consequences. This is a critical problem for the entire autism community and one that must be addressed proactively and in close partnership with community safety partners.  And while this is critical problem, many parents report that they were not aware of this increased risk that their child might elope until the child has actually wandered away. Clearly, more needs to be done by the autism community to share information about this problem.

This presentation features four perspectives on wandering for children with autism.  We hope additionally to further empower parents and the broadest range of professionals as to how they may share information to parents of newly diagnosed children and others about wandering and suggest proactive strategies for preventing it. 

First, we will address some of the data on the extent of wandering and the dangerous impacts that so frequently go along with it and consider some typical elopement scenarios.  Next, we will hear from the principal of an autism charter school, a school featuring proactive approaches to help prevent elopement and actively teach students to go to places they are expected to go to and not to other places. This school also has a number of safety features, procedures and devices that help reduce the likelihood of elopement. Then we will hear from the leading law enforcement training specialist on how parents can work proactively with local law enforcement and safety agencies to share information in an effort to reduce the chances of an elopement and speed recovery should an elopement occur. With the use of a brief video, he will show a simulation of an actual elopement that could have ended in tragedy but, fortunately, due to proactive planning, ended with the safe return of the child. Finally, the CEO of Project Lifesaver International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to keeping children with autism safe will discuss the specific strategies that are used when law enforcement and other community safety agencies do undertake a search for a child on the autism spectrum.  He will also share information about a number of positive developments in the use of electronic tracking to speed recovery of children who have eloped and to prevent elopement from occurring in the first place.  We then will welcome questions from members of the audience and offer a number of suggestions for how the autism community may better share information about this important problem with parents, especially parents of newly diagnosed children.

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