MyASD son and rides

[bean24]

We are going to the world the end of October and I was worried if my son would do rides. We went in March of 2011 but he was only 18 months old then and he did whatever we took him on. He is non-verbal but does make his opinions known. Yesterday we took him to a local amusement park and he loved the rides. Laughing and signing for more. It is such a relief I hope he does as well on our trip, but at least now I am hopeful.

 

[disney david]

Some rides have you tube video of them he coil watch to get an idea what it like before you get their.

 

[Earstou]

Sometimes young children can be afraid of the dark rides. You might prepare him ahead of time for this. I know that my ds handles things better if he has told what might happen ahead of time.

 

[bean24]

Thanks I will try those ideas.

 

[minkydog]

My Christian loves to go on the rides. He is mentally handicapped & autistic, very low functioning and nonverbal. The only ride he had trouble with was Haunted Mansion(we don't do the coasters or Splash Mountain due to his low muscle tone.) HM is very dark and has lots of eerie sounds. He endured the ride but as soon as we got back into daylight he TOOK OFF running. For the rest of the visit we couldn't even walk past HM without him breaking away! POTC and IASW were our salvation--the cast members let him go around twice, since it wasn't busy. The only ride he had difficulty accessing was the Jungle Cruise. Christian is off-balance and trying to get him into the boat safely took 4 people. That will be the last time we do that.

Oh, and I forgot Dumbo. Christian loves Dumbo but he doesn't like to fly high. So if you ever see us on Dumbo we will be in the elephant that is on the ground going in circles.

 

[Disneylvr]

My daughter with lower functioning ASD, she is now 9 years old, has been going to WDW since she was 13 months old. There are certain rides we will never do with her and they include Space Mountain (because she would have to sit alone in a seat), Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller Coaster. She isn't too fond of dark rides/attractions but does okay in Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Soarin' but absolutely hated Dinosaur and It's Tough to Be a Bug. I think it is about prediction and there really isn't a simple way to prepare her for those two attractions. I know your son is still very young and probably isn't tall enough for many rides but this is the list of my daughter's very favorite attractions in no certain order: Exhibition Everest, Test Track, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Dumbo, Aladdin Magic Carpets, Splash Mountain (although she clings to us during the big drop) the parking lot tram (yes!), the monorail and the ferry from the TTC to MK. She has an iPad and we have loaded attraction photos into the app ProLoQuo2Go so she can make choices and to tell her what we are going to do next. If she REALLY likes an attraction she will repeatedly sign "more, more" (she is non-verbal) when it ends. We rode Exhibition Everest three times in one day because she communicated to us "more" and we want to reinforce her communication but I just about threw up afterwards from motion sickness! But I will do anything for my DD when she successfully communicates with us.

 

[alli817]

We were concerned when we first took our ASD child. She was 5 the first time we went to Disney and OMG my daughter loved every single "fast" ride! We discovered she is a speed junky! She loved every single ride she went on, especially the rollercoasters!

 

[bean24]

Thanks again, I am getting more and more excited. We went to a birthday party today at Chuck E Cheeses today and he did okay with Chuck so here's hoping he does as well with characters he loves.

 

[Butterflygirl35]

My ds5 Loves the rides!!!! His favorite is the race cars.. Since he is so young we have not attempted any if the scarier ride. He loves Peter Pan even though it is dark. You Tube is great for preparing them and taking away the fear from unknown....while we might not like long bus rides my son LOVES them