A child on the Autistic Spectrum is removed from a flight

CiDeRmAn

An incident posted in the Aviation forum, where a child was removed from a flight due to episodes of challenging behaviour.
A lot to consider here.

Gone Drinking wrote: »

http://rt.com/usa/257365-flight-emergency-landing-autism/

The above is an article about a family that were removed from a flight because their autistic daughter had two episodes in 30 minutes, or thereabouts.

What are peoples thoughts on this? Did they do the right thing?

I have to say, I actually think the mother made the situation worse for herself here by telling staff that if she didn't get a hot meal her daughter may lash out at someone. Straight away, the staff have been informed of something that may not be particularly true but the information they've been given is what they have to work on.

I'm sure if the daughter did get upset the mother and father would have been able to control her, but they've told the staff something a little sensationalised in order to get the meal and when the child had the second episode in 30 minutes, they had to take the information they were given and the safety of the other passengers into account.

I feel for the family and the staff probably did overreact but if something serious had happened (pretty unlikely id say) they would have been accountable given what they were told at the start.

I have an early impression that the staff did their best but the expectations of the parents may have been unrealistic.
Also, an aircraft is a noisy place and certainly a person on the autistic spectrum who is likely to be sensory defensive may have found the experience at least adding to anxiety as well as possibly intolerable, the seating, lighting and crowded nature of an airliner as well as the engine noise, it may well have been unfair to expect the child to manage their own behaviour in that circumstance.

CaraMay

The mother failed to prepare for the trip and seemed to try to scare tŷe flight attendant into complying with her wishes. It backfired on her

looksee

I think you can be sympathetic to the stress of being a parent of an child/ young adult on the autistic spectrum and still accept that she was not entirely correct in the way she dealt with the whole business of taking that child on an aircraft.

All the training in the world cannot cover every last possibility of events that might occur in the work day of a flight attendant. To an attendant who is accustomed to all the lies and exaggerations from passengers in various degrees of stress or self-absorbtion it could be very difficult to establish when a passenger is in fact being truthful and genuinely concerned for a child with issues, rather than a child that simply needs to be kept under control.

A 15 year old in the throes of a full on episode could do considerable damage to other people, the airline has a responsibility to other people flying as well as the young person and her mother.

CiDeRmAn

It's contrary to a lot of blogs out there, and we know how reliable they are, but parents do not always know what is right, even for their own children.
There is a lot of evidence based work out there, approaches and practices for working with children and adults on the autistic spectrum, techniques that work and continue to be perfected, with new innovation and inspiration all the time.
I speak both as a parent of a child on the spectrum and as a professional in the field.

But there are ASD parent blogs out there and they support the most unhealthy approaches, and they feel that they simply know the answers and how right they are by being parents.

By the same token, its true that no one knows their child better than their parent, but not every parent knows the right thing to do at every hands turn.
That's why we have Occupational Therapists, Psychologists and so on, they have all of this collected historical research and its how that collected knowledge is brought to bear to help all of us.
Its arrogant to suggest that they have every answer, but equally foolish if people think that simply because they are parents that they also have the answers too.

In this case a parent made a bad call about putting their child on a plane.
I think that the best approach would have been an honest appraisal of the child's response to those sorts of environments. And if the child can't travel then, as uncomfortable as it might be, maybe they shouldn't have traveled.

I watched a godawful documentary following parents with their child on the spectrum traveling to the us for "treatment" and whatever about the value of the destination, which I have strong feelings about, the camera stayed on the family for the duration of the intercontinental flight and it was beyond belief.
The child was tormented by the environment, the engine noise, the cramped seating, the lighting, the chatter from the other passengers, the overwhelming sensory torrent that the child was subjected to.
It was inhuman what they did to their child, tantamount to abuse.