When Safety Means More Than Crossing the Street
June 23, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Crossing the street and a hot stove: These are what may first come to mind when an autism parent thinks about safety.
And then there is murder. And abuse. And sexual abuse.
Regarding the latter, the director of a group home for special needs children was accused of raping a 17-year-old autistic female, according to an article in the Daily Home Online (Alabama). Dan Charley, 51, the founder and director of Charlie Angels Ministry Group Home, is charged with first-degree rape.
I have written a lot here about the killing of Katherine McCarron. I wish that I were not mentioning her name in this post; I wish that I were rather writing about her efforts to learn to cross the street and look at the red stop sign, as we are working on with our son Charlie. But I have found myself writing again and again about Katherine’s killing by her mother, Dr. Karen McCarron, in posts categorized under “safety” and “crime.”
And I have found myself thinking again and again about how would Charlie be able to tell us if something like what happened to that 17-year-old happened to him? Charlie does not have a lot of language—-I cheer when he says a four word sentence (”I want eat sushi”)—he does not use words to tell me if he has a stomachache, of anything hurts.
Or if anyone is hurting him.
(And I am not even going to explore the terrible irony of the name of the “Charlie Angels Ministry Group Home.)
For over a year, I have let Andy go to public restrooms alone. My friends think I am nuts because some one could harm him or at least touch him or something. Hopefully that doesn’t happen at Chick-Fil-A and the like but who knows! It’s hard to give them some freedoms when you are constantly worried about the real sick people out there harming your kids.
I’ve just started to have Charlie use the men’s room—-he is just too old to go into the women’s room and it’s time for him to learn. So I have been spending time standing halfway in the doorway and calling out diretions…
I don’t remember when I let Ben go, but I still wait outside and keep my ears glued. And I have always worried about Ben being abused…he is too kind.
The commonality of both these stories is: Who is really sick?? Who is most in need of “social skills”, eh?
Frankly, I think SS’s are highly over-rated.
Indeed—”typical” individuals have some pretty deficits in the SS area, especially when dealing with a kid like Charlie.
Autism is a communication disorder characterised by a child’s inability to relate to the outside world – physically and emotionally. These children are usually hypersensitive to external environmental stimuli and seem to be withdrawn into an inside world only they have access to. In such a situation, autistic children need special and individualised care from their parents and other caregivers.