Should people with Asperger's be allowed to drive?
I responded to a twitter question and had the following exchange:
So the real answer needs more than 140 characters.
I think I'll divide this up into 3-4 posts.
Here's my take.
1. People with Asperger's are people, and the default should be that they have the standard suite of rights and privileges of adults—including the privilege of driving.
2. People with Asperger's have a complicated constellation of challenges that make driving a differently challenging task. I don't say harder, but there isn't really a standard I can reference.
3. If some of the challenges for an individual with Aperger's are related to other kinds of challenges we face, then we can assess and adjust to help them be safe and confident drivers.
4. Driving is a privilege. Driving is a privilege. Driving is a privilege. Safety earns that privilege. Unproven confidence doesn't earn the privilege.
PURPOSE: What is the purpose of driving?
For some of us, driving is utilitarian. We just want to get from A back home to A safely and efficiently. For others, driving is a sports event, a statement of independence or adulthood, a personal therapy session, a time to lecture kids as a captive audience, or a form of mobile flirting. I'll bet I don't have to describe all the types of drivers for you to recognize our varying purposes.
For an Aspie learning to drive, the first thing I would do is define the purpose. I would limit the purpose to utilitarian transportation—both safe and efficient. Limiting the purpose let's you as the driving instructor put a lot of other behaviors off-cue.
Defining the purpose also helps define success. Making sure that the outcome is clearly defined and prioritized is important. Safety is vastly more important than efficiency. If you are in the wrong lane to enter an on-ramp or make a turn, efficiency would urge you to make a challenging and less-safe maneuver to keep on your preferred/efficient route. Safety says, go around, make a u-turn, recalculate the route or find a safe place to reset and recalculate. Safety is number 1-9, efficiency comes in #10 and every other purpose is really a dangerous non-purpose.
When teaching an Aspie to drive, use the cognitive and metacognitive abilities of the Aspie to help shape the thought process of driving to be safety oriented. For example, when teaching my son, I had him think out loud so I could hear him verbalize his observations. By affirming the safety-oriented thoughts and helping his filter out the non-safety oriented thoughts I was able to help him be more focused on safety factors and less distracted by signs, environment, cars, other drivers, etc. Helping the driver learn to ignore stimuli is critical. For an Aspie with hypervigilant senses, ignoring is more important than noticing. The Aspie will probably note everthing. The key is learning what to notice and give extra attention.
In the next post I'll address some Protocols for driving safely. I'll touch on things like literal and mental blind spots, status quo as safety, and the specialized language used for communicating with other drivers.
Stay tuned after that for posts including Perceptions and Programs.
Safe travels!
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