First Responders...

[Guest guest]

Hi all:

Joanne sent me this article. Our children are out in the community more and

more and especially during the warmer, summer months.

If your community has not yet implemented an autism and I/DD awareness program,

it would be very worthwhile to follow up on this...In addition, it is probably

also worthwhile to make sure both police and firemen are required to review the

original training material.

Thanks, Joanne!

Ellen

LINK TO NEWSPAPER

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/cookstory.asp?id=289049 & cc=c & tc=mpr & t=mount%20pr\

ospect

--------------------------------------

Posted Friday, March 09, 2007

Anticipating the fact that many autistic children will soon be entering their

teen years, every

officer in the Mount Prospect Police Department has now received training on

recognizing autism,

differentiating it from belligerent behavior and dealing with autistic people,

thanks to the

advocacy and concern of a local mother.

Joanne Prifti-, the mother of a preteen boy with Asperger's syndrome, a

high functioning

version of an autism spectrum disorder, approached former Police Chief

Eddington last

year, asking what training his police officers had in dealing with people with

autism. An incident

in a neighboring community in which an autistic man was Tasered by police and

subsequently died

prompted Prifti-' concern.

" Autism is an expressive language disorder, " she explains, " and statistics say

that autistic

people are more likely to get in trouble with the police because they can't

express

themselves. "

For instance, she says, they are very literal. If an autistic person was stopped

for speeding, and

the officer told him he were going 45 mph in a 35 mph speed zone, he might say,

" Actually, I was

going 44. " A police officer could interpret this as them being belligerent or

smart-mouthed.

Yet other autistic people might not respond at all, she continues, and a police

officer could

think that they were drunk or high.

So it is very important that officers be trained to recognize autistic behavior

and how to deal

with it. Prifti- says that by approaching the police she was simply

trying to avert

something that could be very costly to an autistic child and very costly to a

community.

Autism was on Mount Prospect training officer Sgt. Tim Janowick's radar screen

even before

Prifti- approached him, thanks to that same incident in another

community. So he was very

receptive to her overtures to the department.

In fact, he and Investigator Tim attended the " Autism Awareness "

training for police

officers offered last May during the Autism I Conference in Rosemont and plan to

send another

youth investigator to the training this May.

" We learned how to recognize the characteristics of autism; how to deal with

their verbal and

non-verbal communication; how certain things like sudden noises and touching can

make them react;

how to interview them; the results if they are over-stimulated and so forth, "

Janowick recalls.

" We even learned how autistic people are often used as pawns by criminals and

how they are

attracted to shiny, reflective objects like swimming pools when they are out

wandering, " he

continues.

Janowick then relayed what he learned to all of the other officers in the

department during

staggered training in late August and the reaction from those officers was very

positive, he says.

In fact, right after the training concluded, one officer made use of the

training in an encounter

at Randhurst Mall with a teen who has Asperger's.

As a result of the new knowledge they have gained, Janowick and his superiors

have even instituted

a policy of having health-care providers present when their officers have reason

to interact with

an autistic person.

" This is going to help us a lot with recognition of people with autism and it

has also prompted

us

to refresh and expand our training on awareness of other physical and mental

disabilities, "

Janowick says.

" The police officers in Mount Prospect are more likely to encounter autistic

people than their

colleagues elsewhere, " Prifti- says, " because when NSSEO, the Northwest

Suburban

Special

Education Organization, recently mapped out their service area to see where

their autistic clients

lived, they discovered that Mount Prospect has a higher percentage of autism

than neighboring

communities do. "

" We are at the beginning of what I call a tsunami wave of kids with autism

becoming

teenagers, "

she continues, " and, like my son, they are going to want to be more independent

as they get

older

and we are going to need to provide them with these opportunities. "

" It is great that Mrs. Prifti- was pro-active and came to us, " Janowick

says. " It

has

become a great partnership. "

Ellen Garber Bronfeld

egskb@...