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New Jersey Assemblyman Fred Scalera is sponsoring a measure (A-1908) to establish an autism awareness training course that emergency medical technicians, police and firefighters would be required to take, Politiker NJ reports. Scalera (D-Essex) is a fire chief in Nutley, in northern New Jersey; the measure would requires Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) to create an autism awareness training course and curriculum. Pprospective emergency medical technicians would be required to complete the DHSS administered course prior to receiving certification and current emergency medical technicians would be required to complete a continuing education course in “autism recognition and response techniques.” “Recognition” seems especially important to me: My son is 10 1/2, the same height as I am, stronger than he realizes, and certainly prone to becoming upset—and to cry out, or yell, or seem overly physical—-sometimes in public; it has already happened that a police car has asked me—when Charlie was having a very difficult time in the backseat of the car—-”what’s going on here, Ma’am) and asked for my driver’s license.
And: Last September, 15-year-old Taylor Karras was tasered by policemen when he fled from his parents during a visit to a Regional Center in southern California. In December of 2006, 18-year-old Kevin Colindres ended up in a coma and suffered “irreparable brain damage” after he was restrained by Miami police; he later died. In November of 2005, 30-year-old Hansel Cunningham III died; three Des Plaine police are alleged to have used a “stun gun, pepper spray and a facedown hold that applied ‘dangerous and unreasonable pressure,’” to subdue him.
Unfortunately, I could go on with similar stories of autistic individuals being seriously injured or dying as a result of what seems to be excessive physical force from emergency service personnel. I understand that they are trying to deal with extremely difficult situations—-one hopes that NJ Bill A-1908 is just a start in teaching understanding about autism and about how emergency service personnel might best respond and help, and not hurt, autistic individuals.
1458 days ago
[...] to say, incidents like these make training about autism for police and other first responders more than essential. The Daily Press quotes a James City Police spokesman, Mike Spearsman, as [...]
With the help of the Dioug Flutie Jr Foundation and The Jamie McMurray Foundation, Durand Academy & Community Services is providing free training done at Police and Fire/EMT departmnets in Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester counties and are getting ready to expand into other areas. Feel free to contact me ate 856-235-3540 ext. 107
1554 days ago
[...] to 15-year-old Sir Millage in December of 2006. There’s a bill here in New Jersey to promote autism training for first responders, for emergency medical technicians, police and firefighters—–on the agenda should be [...]
Just something that you can listen to. There’s a fair amount of warm-up in the beginning.
Audio:Are you prepared for an autism emergency?
3 hrs.
Dennis Debbaudt
http://pspb.org/client/autism/Session41.mp3
Penn State National Autism Conference, Aug 2007
Looking into it—-thanks for the link!
Please see the blog of Rory Miller, a cop, and the father of two autistic kids. (He admits to being a bit strange, himself)
I tried to leave a link to his post, here, but it didn’t work.
It was http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/2006/12/again.html
I can’t make comments on his blog, it being a Blogger (spit!) one, but maybe La Professora could communicate with him?
NC may have been the first to have such a law, and IN is in progress to setting up this kind of training on a statewide basis
There was a recommendation of such training in the CA blue ribbon report.
So more states may be coming online with these measures in a codified way, but in the meantime, individual municipalities can have their own trainings and programs. The local ASA branch here organized and sponsored 3 First Responder trainings by Dennis Debbaudt for our state’s largest metropolitan areas, and continues to do followup.
It seems that New Jersey leads the other states when it comes to programs directed at caring for autism.
I wish other states would follow their lead.
I have had a particular interest in this because of a couple of unfortunate incidents close to home involving autistic teens.
Dennis Debbaudt has kind of pioneered autism sensitivity/awareness training for first responders and law enforcement. He also has suggestions for parents and the individuals themselves to try and prevent unfortunate situations.
Dennis Debbaudt
Police And Autism: Avoiding Unfortunate Situations
http://policeandautism.cjb.net/
Autism Risk & Safety Management
http://autismriskmanagement.com/index.html
A model of another program in MA
The Autism and Law Enforcement
Education Coalition ALEC (MA)
http://www.sncarc.org/alec.htm
I hope that the NJ program also incorporates Crisis Prevention Training, alternatives to restraint and if must be so as a last measure (as opposed to a first), safe restraint.
And just something that I found in Google books that looked interesting because it mentioned augmentative communication and how to respond to it: Dangerous Encounters– Avoiding Perilous Situations with Autism: A Streetwise Guide for all Emergency Responders, Retailers, and Parents.
(Try skimming it in Google books)
I hope that NJ develops a good program to provide first responders with reliable and ongoing training so they can interact more effectively and positively with autistic citizens.
@chaotic idealism,
seconding your point about police needing to be briefed about nonverbal and verbal persons—
The training ideas mentioned above are excellent.
I’m planning to ask my doctor about getting “medic alert” bracelets for my sons. At this stage (3 years old), I wanted them mostly in case they wander off. But after reading your post, I think the bracelets might help to avoid rough handling by the police.
It just needs to be realistic sort of training–how to recognize autism versus somebody who’s high on drugs or just wants to kick somebody’s face in. Otherwise, people will just go on doing the same thing they usually do, just to protect themselves in case the potentially autistic person is actually high on meth or something. And that can be really dangerous.
Police need to be briefed on the nonverbal (or partly verbal) people in their area. Otherwise, when it comes down to it, they won’t be able to recognize it–tell apart an autistic person from a severely manic person from an intoxicated person… They should bring in people of all ages who are actually autistic for the cops to meet, so that they’ll know what stimming looks like and how sometimes it’s hard to speak when you’re overwhelmed, so they won’t assume it’s drugs.
Training promotes understanding so training is always a good idea.