Autistic Child/Mom Kicked Off Plane

[quote=Panama Girl;107434]My mom tells me she used to give us Benadryl before a flight... hmmm. It must have worked, I can't remember any of us throwing a fit on an airplane, ever.


A lot of people with Autistic children have them on strict diets (gluten free) and do not believe in medication.

If you ever meet someone who claims to have found The Truth or True Enlightenment... run like hell!

After working with Autistic kids for a few years i would say this is perfect advice. Autistic children can have sesitivities and sensory issues triggered by a number opf things from temperatures, noies, lights. Melltdowns can happen daily or monthly.


[quote=Pythoness;107422]Autistic kids will indeed throw monumental tantrums. It's known as "meltdown" because truthfully, that is what it is.

[quote=Pythoness;107430]I'd probably tell them about it before I ever set foot on the plane, if I thought something about the flight might upset him.

I would say right here is what set the lad off into a melt down with all of the sensory issues of Autistic this tight belt beind around him probably set him off

quote:She kept coming over and tugging his seatbelt to make it tighter, 'This has to stay tight'. And then he was wiggling around and trying to get out of his seatbelt. And she kept coming over and reprimanding him and yelling at him," Farrell said.



I am no expert about Autism, but this man is. This is a wonderful sight by a man with Autism. I have had a three day course with this man and learned so many new things about Autism, I advise you to read anything you can by him or about him.

Demystifying Autism from the Inside Out | The Official Website of William Stillman



this is a pretty good article wrote by an autistic person.





I'm an unshielded radio picking up signals from everyone, all the time. The volume is too loud, the lights are too bright and people keep trying to engage my face energy, my vision, the beam of my 3rd eye, things humans are expected to do in America, to be assertive, astute, networking social animals with a firm handshake and unwavering eye contact. I feel naked and anxious in groups. I wish to be invisible. I wish most often to be alone in unspoilt nature with no human vibrations around to interfere with the signals of the other Animal Beings and from God.
But sometimes i have to be in a car, a grocery store, someone's house... without my guitar and stage to shelter me, without my intense familiar self-generated noise to keep other input OUT......
Careful self-monitoring over how much "stamina" i have to maintain outside activities has been a lifelong study of patterns and causes. i try to avoid anxiety and overload to the best of my ability, but the continued push to participate in "the world" often leaves me stranded in a disintegrating maelstrom of people, noise and light, unable to understand or form words, a wild animal caught in a confusing zoo called a "store". i depend on other people to help me now, but when i was alone there were times i'd blank out and wake up somewhere cold and wet and shoeless and nonverbal hiding behind trashcans in an alley with no idea what had happened. All without drugs!
i am keenly telepathic to seething auric clouds of emotional states and inner vibrations, no matter how hard i try to shield myself from other people's bio-electric fields. Many autistics share this ability. We are NOT the unfeeling robots of common misconception. HOWEVER......... intently and accurately resonating with someone's feelings and mind-pictures does not mean you know what to do with the information, socially or practically.
i CAN and DO feel your intense sorrow, though i am not making an indication of it that you could understand, but i myself cannot seem to cry when it is socially appropriate. However i sure can in the middle of a grocery store when they have "revamped the layout" and i can no longer find the things i need! It's a frantic moaning rocking sort of cry with wild white eyes and the clenching, flailing, twiddling things my hands do when stress builds up, little silver-banded pink birds beating at the walls of weird closing in.
Push even farther past what my sensory array can process and the seizures start, overwhelming back-arching shuddering groans, full-body spasming and guttural animal-timbre yelling. There is no control or intervention possible from my end once this starts. I may vomit or piss myself and often get a migraine. My motor skills are sketchy and i move very jerkily and with no precision. Assisting me to a dark quiet environment to be alone with a blanket to wrap tightly in is a great help. (the coolness of an empty bathtub is a great quiet place). This "meltdown" or "overload" is usually followed by a period of dazed non-consciousness that lasts an hour or so sometimes leading to sleep. Verbal ability returns in 3-12 hours.
Before i knew my condition was called "autism", felt great shame over these odd episodes and avoided putting myself in conditions where it was likely to occur, which meant i stayed home a lot. It is hard to explain the sheer awfulness of such an event. it's a seizure, an electrical storm of the brain, and causes the deepest terror and dread and anxiety that i can't even find words for. I feel it coming when my thoughts start to fragment, verbal ability is lost, the roaring becomes unbearably loud, i get all prickly and nauseous and light sensitive. The internal chronometer of my mind starts losing data and inserting blanks spaces and terrible noise. When the first spasm hits, the chronometer goes blank. I have relied on the reports of others for the details about shuddering and yelling and kicking things over thrashing around. Regular sorts of full-time employment are challenging to say the least. I've had three "jobs". Self-injury was often a coping skill in desparate situations, as was the deadening effect of alcohol (for a short while), another common self-injury, as it resulted in severe hangovers. Forcing the brain to concentrate on the pure singularity of pain to block out all other input and the resultant release of endorphins can sometimes abort or delay an overload condition. But then you've injured your body and that can't continue.
Meltdown happens, and not just to little kids. Meltdown can also happen in neurotypical adults. There is a scene in the movie "The Right Stuff" where astronaut-candidates are subjected to an ever-escalating barrage of stimuli (lights, noises, vapor releases, etc) to see how far they go before they "freak out".
Sensory overload is not confined to autistics. But for autistics, the amount and volume of trigger stimuli necessary for a meltdown are negligible compared to the neurotypical person. Ridicule, puzzlement, disappointment, annoyance, frustration, these are the reactions of neurotypicals when faced with adults who "fall apart" under "everyday" circumstances and routine stresses.
I would like to build a sensory overload chamber to demonstrate to normals what the experiencecould feel like .... wrap them in starched burlap and cold oily plastic wrap, fill the air with nauseous smells (skunk, gasoline, full ashtrays, rotted hamburger), randomly flash bright lights, rock the container like a seasick freighter, bring in three competing soundtracks at rock-concert volume ( including Muzak, airconditioner hum, traffic noise, screaming children, barking dogs, sirens, and two different conversations and then TEST them for accurate content comprehension.....
.....and then, like school, parents, and society, punish them in every aspect of their life for not getting the right answers. And blame their own inabilities on "laziness, daydreaming, not applying yourself, not trying hard enough, being too headstrong/shy/abrasive/fearful/controlling..... blah blah blah......." ......and then ask if they'd like to do it every day. Forever. And wonder why they "act out" in hopeless rage.... and suicide.

Sensory Overload Simulation



Anyone can get overloaded.
Too much noise for too long will make anyone crazy. Too many bright lights, not enough sleep, constant irritation of a person's skin...horrible smells, etc.
Enough stimulation will make a person nuts and desperate to get away. Which is why these things are used in torture.
These things are the main source of the autistic meltdown.
It's about sensory stuff;
(sometimes a particular kind of voice is irritating to listen to)
and unreasonable social demands (having to stay in a classroom of kids)
and occasionally we act out as a way to find ourselves in time and space because we can have severe problems with proprioception and keeping track of time.

advice:The thing for parents and others to do is see what triggered it in the first place. The thing is not to punish the autistic for having the meltdown. Like Lovaas did when he hit a girl because she was banging her head on a piece of furniture*.

Well there are always 2 sides to any story. The Captain always has the final say in removing troublesome people from a airplane.

Then he should have put the flight attendant off too as she was part of the problem..