Definition
Accidents are a leading cause of death in autism (Gillberg et al. 2010; Pickett et al. 2006; Shavelle et al. 2001). The risk for accidents in autism likely reflects the role of several factors including associated cognitive disabilities, impulsivity, and behavior problems sometimes combined with relatively good motor abilities. Unusual restricted and sensory interests may also contribute to this problem, e.g., a child who likes spinning things may try to manually explore a spinning fan. While individuals with autism can be nervous about many new situations, at other times, they may seem driven to explore things that are intensely interesting to them.
In some ways the problem is not, of course, confined to children with autism, i.e., injuries are the leading cause of death in children and youth in the USA. For every injury that is fatal, about 200 other injures result in emergency room visits. Some steps can be taken to insure safety for the individual both in- and outside of...
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Wiesner, L., Volkmar, F.R. (2020). Safety. In: Volkmar, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_1591-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6435-8_1591-3
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