One thing that we have I would almost say instilled in our children from birth is a love of traveling. Both short distances and Long. Both of our older children which includes our Son have travelled by train for a two day trip from Toronto home to NB. Our eldest daughter went by car up there in the first place. We spent the first few years of our married life travelling from one city to another depending on our whims to determine where we would most prefer to spend our life. Our most recent child has not been subject to much more then 4 and 5 hour trips but even she seems to have taken to travelling.
This in and of itself is good because for our son this time is perhaps our most settled times is when he is in the car. Now there does appear to be some adjustment when we trade in our vehicles but in general in the car he will sit for hours and play on his leapster game system which to me is a great invention if it was done with autistic children in mind. The reason I say this is because it seems to be largely through this toy that we are able to determine just how fast his mind works and what his abilities are.
Driving time because of this is generally quiet and enjoyable whether it be a shopping trip or a trip to an out of town spot for some fun time. We find in general our son eats better in the car then at home, he is significantly less agressive and in general seems to enjoy the travel and usually the destination better then any normal routine things like home or school.
Destinations appear to be of no concern as he even appears to enjoy driving for the sake of driving, which allows even more relaxation time.
One thing we have found though in recent years is as he gets older he is less and less likely to fall asleep in the car. At first this was not the case but at present it is a very rare occasion that will find our son asleep at the end of a trip unless it is an extremely long day and likely quite warm.
One other detail on travel i have found even at our destination I find our son is significantly less likely to strike out then while at home. I don’t have a real explanation for this but it does appear that his striking out is generally reserved for people who he is around a significant amount of the time such as classmates TA’s and family with the majority of it going to his TA’s and us as his parents. We still have yet to see a serious attempt to strike the baby with one minor incident appearing to be the extent of it and that appeared to be accidental.
So in general in our family we have found that it is best to take him on at least short trips as often as possible to give him as much quiet time as possible however while i recommend at least an attempt to see if this helps others i do not swear in every case it will as each autistic child that i have come across i have found to be unique for a large part
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