is your child a “runner”?

i just recently read a study by the national autism institute that stated, according to a recent survey, that 50% of autistic children have wandered off (to be fair, in a three week period 800 parents answered the survey). most of the running behavior peaked around the age of four with over 10 deaths reported due to this last year. that is some scary stuff! we just recently had our most scary incident just a few days ago.

i had come home from work and sir dantes was sitting at the kitchen table playing on his laptop. ms. maxie was playing with her new “little pony” in the living room and daddy was in the kitchen getting dinner ready. it was a pretty typical evening. after the usual hellos i went to the bedroom to take off my shoes and change into my jammies. when i came back into the kitchen sir dantes was gone.

Follow up:

i noticed that ms. maxie was now in her room playing on her computer and sir dantes was not in there. and, he was not in his bedroom. and, he was not in the living room. so i asked, “where is sir dantes?” daddy said “i don’t know”. we looked at each other and immediately went outside. daddy headed to the front yard and i went to the backyard. no sir dantes to be found. i went back in the house and yelled to ms. maxie if she saw her brother. no, she did not see him. daddy continued looking outside and i rejoined him and looked in back again. the fear was gripping me inside and i began to panic. then i turned around and saw him in the car.

i opened the door to the car and told sir dantes to get out and daddy pointed to the door to the house and told him to get inside NOW! he looked at us and made the sign for “surprise”. we were not amused and sir dantes hung his head and went into the house.

now, sir dantes just turned four this past february. he has made an attempted escape before, and has made it outside with one of us right on his heels. but, this time…how did he get past us? well, i was in the other room and daddy was busy trying to cook. we have a “ding ding” on all of the doors, but we didn’t hear it. why? the volume of the television was any louder than normal. have we just become to accustomed to hearing the “ding ding”? but that is not really the issue.

we were scared to death! we live out in the country where trucks speed down our little country road. behind our house is over 50 acres of cedar woods with sinkholes and cave systems. sir dantes loves trees and we may never find him. we have taken both of the babies hiking out there but he is only four. he could easily get turned around and go the wrong way. so many things…i hate to think about it.

for me, this is the hardest part of autism to deal with. some of the behavior has annoyed me, such as the time he went through his screaming spells. but, they didn’t scare me. i can’t really put into words the depth of the fear that swept over me when i had no idea of where he was. he didn’t want to run away; he just wanted to go get in the car. but, what if he wanted to chase that butterfly? what if he wanted to hug the tree next to the barn (which he does quite regularly) and then decided the next tree needed a hug as well, and then the next tree.

what to do? well, new locks on the doors that require a key to start. and then we need to hide that key because he has already figured out how to use a key. we need to turn up the volume on the “ding ding” and alert everyone that lives around us that they could get a call in the middle of the night. since sir dantes doesn’t speak we need to find some way to attach his name and phone number to him that he won’t take off. that may require some investigation.

maybe i can sew labels in all of his clothes?

here is the link if you want to read the results of the survey: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-research-finds-half-of-all-children-with-autism-wander-from-safety-120304874.html