More on Airline Access

Published April 03, 2009 @ 04:00PM PT

Earier this week I wrote about issues with airline access for autistic people. Today, Manchester Airport UK announced a new guidebook for autistic children and their families to help make the experience of flying to and from Manchester more stress-free. The book can be found and downloaded from the airport's accessibility page (scroll down to the bottom).

It's fantastic that Manchester is thinking about access needs for people on the spectrum. The guide is easy to understand and provides information both graphically and in words.

A few questions:

1. Many airplane trips involved more than one airport. How can the guide book idea be expanded to cover more ground?

2. Autistic adults also use airlines and airports, both with and without travel companions. How can such a guide be translated to the adult audience? How can the idea be expanded to reach a wider population, including people who are not autistic but who would have better airline experiences by using such a tool?

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Comments (2)

Incidentally, there's one little distinction (or lack thereof) which bugged me in the guide for autistic kids. One of the questions in the checklist in each section asked if you could hear the PA announcements. Yeah, I can hear them, technically, but they all sound like "Mrph flrbl blrf brflrgl"...

And YES on needing a guide for autistic (and otherwise disabled) adults!

Posted by Cody Boisclair on 04/03/2009 @ 04:11PM PT
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Amusingly (to me anyway), I literally use airport PA announcements as an analogy to help others understand what CAPD is like since people with out an auditory processing issue often hear them as "Mrph flrbl blrf brflgl" as well! Transportation PA announcements are pretty dreadful for all (though, not to minimize, definitely worse for people with auditory processing issues).

Posted by Dora Raymaker on 04/03/2009 @ 07:41PM PT
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Dora is committed to improving quality of life for individuals on the autistic spectrum--including herself! She is Co-director of the Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education and a member of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network's Board of Directors.