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Road Safety

laurat

Hi All

I'm new here but am hoping someone may be able to help. My son has recently been diagnosed with ASD. He will be 4 in August and wants to be independent (like the other children) when walking to school. I want to support this independence however one of my main concerns for him at the moment is his lack of road safety, even though I have tried to explain to him the danger as you can imagine he struggles with the concept, this has resulted in having to take the car to school instead of walking. 

He has a rountine of counting and jumping from the curb and when he is doing this has no awareness of the traffic and the danger as he is only focussed on his task. I have tried to distract him when possible but if he can't do his rountine he will throw himself on the road!!! Apart from strapping him to my back I am running out of ideas.

If anyone has any tips of how to help with this I would really appreciate it.

Thanks

Parents

  • Hi, 

    I might be able to help, or I like to think I can.

    At 4 I can't imagine anyone having perfect road saftey, so I guess its nothing unusal. I do not think taking the car is the answer though, because if you always take the car he will never learn. It also is just another thing that makes him different and he may regret not learning road saftey when older. I know their are lots of small things like this I just never had support to learn when I was younger and am now just expected to be able to do and can't!

    My first suggestion would be to get him some kind of strap.  Even something simple like a cord around yours and his wrist so you can keep him closebye but can also carry bags and do not have to touch him. I used something like this on hoildays when it was busy or new and it really would have helped all the time. 

    Another Idea I have is to make it into a game. Make a game of doing a certain thing at each place. Like when you crosss the road count all the cars that go past-then when you can see no more cars  it is safe to cross. Make it a game to see which day each week their was the most cars-or something like this. Or another game could be to look for certain things allong the route, like a certain shop or whatever you pass. Then associate each thing with a different action. When he gets better road saftey you could then use the different things as waiting points, so allow him to go alone to each point only if he waits and corsses roads together. 

    Hope some of this helps
    Amy 

Reply

  • Hi, 

    I might be able to help, or I like to think I can.

    At 4 I can't imagine anyone having perfect road saftey, so I guess its nothing unusal. I do not think taking the car is the answer though, because if you always take the car he will never learn. It also is just another thing that makes him different and he may regret not learning road saftey when older. I know their are lots of small things like this I just never had support to learn when I was younger and am now just expected to be able to do and can't!

    My first suggestion would be to get him some kind of strap.  Even something simple like a cord around yours and his wrist so you can keep him closebye but can also carry bags and do not have to touch him. I used something like this on hoildays when it was busy or new and it really would have helped all the time. 

    Another Idea I have is to make it into a game. Make a game of doing a certain thing at each place. Like when you crosss the road count all the cars that go past-then when you can see no more cars  it is safe to cross. Make it a game to see which day each week their was the most cars-or something like this. Or another game could be to look for certain things allong the route, like a certain shop or whatever you pass. Then associate each thing with a different action. When he gets better road saftey you could then use the different things as waiting points, so allow him to go alone to each point only if he waits and corsses roads together. 

    Hope some of this helps
    Amy 

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