Customer Reviews

Autism, Advocates and Law Enforcement Professionals: Recognizing and Reducing Risk Situations for People With Autism Spectrum Disorders

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This is a must read for all law enforcement personnel, fire departments, emergency medical technicians and especially parents of children with autism. It is so important that communities use this resource to recognize the characteristics of persons with autism and strategies to help should they encounter a person with this neurological disorder. As a parent, this was a real eye- opener and made me realize how much work and education needs to take place in my own community. Thank you Mr. Debbaudt for this book!

This was a very informative book regarding the difficulties law enforcement individuals face when confronted with what looks like "red flag" criminal behavior by individuals who are rarely in control of their behavior and who generaly do not respond to verbal commands. While written five years ago, this is still a timely topic, not just for law enforcement professionals, but for families who care for loved ones diagnosed with Autism. The perspectives of the author are definitely written from the heart as well as from a solid professional foundation. Anyone who is caring for a loved one afflicted with Autism should read this book and put into practice the recommendations identified.

Debbaudt does an excellent job on two fronts" First, explaining to law enforcment professionals how to identify and deal with autistic people, but also encouraging parents and caretakers to take responsibility for educating their loved ones on how to deal with the police in order to avoid tragedies. People with developmental disabilities are seven times more likely to interact with the police than people without disabilities. This is an important issue, and this book is an important contribution towards helping ameliorate a significant problem.

This book was very detailed and full of information. It was helpful training EMS personnel.

As a mother of a four year old autistic child, I'm plagued with the worries of "what will happen to my child when I'm gone." As such, we have set up our wills and our estates to take care of him. However, there are even more practical issues to worry about that Dennis Debbaudt brings to light in his book. People with develeopmental disorders are seven times more likely to come into contact with law enforcement than regular citizens. Our autistic children are socially impared, and the ignorance of this disorder is rampant among police ranks and other "first responders" to an emergency situation. Often "autistic traits" can be mistenterpreted as drug abuse, hositlity and beliegerence, dementia, or suspicious behavior that can appear as criminal intent. People with autism have been accidentally killed in crime situations, or have given false confessions to crimes they didn't commit largely due to police ignorance of this disorder.

This is a good primer for police and other first responders. It gives a good overview of why certain investigation techiques are not effecitve in dealing with autism. The second half of the book is directed at parents and caregivers - with good tips about informing local police of your child's condition, keeping your child safe at home, in school, and while traveling. There are also tips on spreading autism awareness to police and other first responders on a grassroots basis.

Although I was personally disappointed in this book, I can't fault the author. My motive in purchasing it was to learn how to help someone I know well, who has Asperger's Syndrome, deal with police officers (or better yet, avoid them entirely.) Unfortunately, that book may not yet have been written. Debbault's book does help me understand how officers can and should be trained in dealing with persons with autism, and I wish such training were mandatory, since there are now many, many potential problems due to the prevalence of autism in its various forms.

The author's website is probably just as helpful to advocates and higher functioning persons with autistic spectrum disorders as is this particular book. Perhaps, one day, this author will write an article for those of us with a loved one who has autism, so that we can educate him or her, for those times when the law enforcement or security person has only minimal training, but still has authority.

The book does provide information to law enforcement officials in how to avoid what the author terms "unfortunate situations." Until this knowledge is more broadly disseminated, there will be too many of those situations. So, if you are a cop or know one, buy this book and pass it along.

This a superb resource for law enforcement - and for those interested in helping people with autism handle potential contacts with law enforcement better.

A must for law enforcement who are unfamiliar with autism and related behavior. It should be used in conjunction with "Dangerous Encounters--Avoiding Perilous Situations with Autism" by Bill Davis. In 2007, Raymond Lee Mitchell, a young man with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), died after a struggle with sheriff deputies from alleged autism-induced "excited delirium syndrome" , a condition theorized to lead to sudden cardiac arrest. Raymond was throwing a tantrum and the mother felt forced to call the police. The deputies got into a struggle with the youth, who died as a result. The officers in this case may not have realized that a person with ASD has difficulty understanding verbal commands and body language. To prevent tragedies such as Raymond's, guidelines provided in this book can be used by police and correctional officers regarding identifying aggression and challenging behavior in these youth. It should be used with real-life examples and in-depth training.

Although I admit I haven't read the entire book - most of the parts I read were right on target.

I will tell you from personal experience with 2 step children - the police are actually becoming much more sensitive to a child or adult with Asbergers/Autism/Bi-Polar disorder. They seem to be a lot more knowlegeable and helpful to both the offending and - offended parties.

The only thing that concerns me with developing policies toward advocacy of protecting people with HFA is the fact that most of these kids, at least in my experience know that what they are doing (some of these things are sexual deviance and some are violent acts) is wrong morally.

The kids I have dealt with are not "acedemically" learning disabled. They get good grades in school. They know the difference between right and wrong.

It has been my experience as a step-parent of two boys (One with Asbergers, the other with Bipolar) these children will do the "bad stuff" behind a closed door or when they "believe" they have no supervision or they believe no one is watching them. (Understanding they don't really always know when they are being watched)

When you ask them why they did something bad after the fact - the Asbergers kid will tell you exactly why he did it. The bipolar kid is smart enough to know telling you why could get him into more trouble and he won't tell you.

It has been my experience they both can/will react violently when they realize they have been caught. Getting caught doing anything wrong makes a normal person nervous but to a person with autism or bipolar it can make them do something drastic to evade capture...or injure you or damage property - which to me is the real danger to law enforcement. My advice to law enforcement - if the autistic person is over 12 years old...don't approach one of these people alone without some kind of help or back-up if you can help it.

It is a very complicated problem. I am not unsympathetic to the advocates of the disabled. However - I am not an advocate of throwing out "accountablity" for the autistic perpetrator of a sexual or a violent crime. If someone is capable of doing something violent or sexually deviant once, they will do it again - and they do not belong out in the world loose to harm or violate other people.

I don't buy the argument these kids just need to be drugged after a violent outburst and sent back to a half-way house, back to their parents house or an adult foster care home. Some of these people do need to be locked up in a hospital or a criminal facility for their entire life.