This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Nearly half of children with autism wander from safe places
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Nearly half of children with autism spectrum disorders are reported to wander or “bolt,” and more than half of these children go missing, according to study results published online.
Researchers from the Kennedy Krieger Institute looked at data that included families of 1,218 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and 1,076 of their siblings who do not have ASD. The families were recruited through an online questionnaire. The primary outcome measured by researchers was elopement status beginning at age 4 years, when elopement and wandering are increasingly atypical behaviors. “Missing” status was a secondary outcome; a child who eloped and had gone missing long enough to cause concern was coded as missing, whereas those who had not were coded as non-missing.
The researchers found that 49% of children with ASD attempted to elope at least once after age 4 years. Of those who attempted to elope, 53% were gone long enough to cause concern. The researchers reported that from age 4 to 7 years, 46% of children with ASD had eloped, a rate that was four times that of unaffected siblings; 27% of children had eloped from age 8 to 11 years vs. only 1% of unaffected siblings.
The researchers also reported that many of the children had close calls with traffic injuries and drowning.
The researchers wrote that future research is needed to determine whether there are different types of elopement, requiring different prevention strategies. With a greater understanding of elopement, researchers will have the ability to develop more targeted interventions to assist parents in coping with this extremely stressful behavior, they noted.
Disclosure: This research was funded by the Autism Research Institute, Autism Science Foundation, Autism Speaks, Global Autism Collaboration and National Autism Association. The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts