[Strangel]

I realize this thread was started quite a while back, but I feel the need to give my two cents. lol

My son has autism, he's eleven years old (twelve in January) and lives with my mother in the house he was brought home from the hospital to. He's been to DLR three years running and this year I finally talked mom into buying him an annual pass. I took them through the park, explaining how to approach CMs, how to distinguish which ones are from the "area" you're in and which ones shouldn't be approached unless it's a last resort (character handlers, etc).
I had no idea there were ever special passes for the disabled or I would have mentioned that, too. At this point, we're doing really well with his acceptance of the noise and crowds of the park. We know that sooner or later, he's going to explode, and that it'll generally happen towards the evening if we haven't taken a break outside the park. Since toddlerhood he's always done the same thing.. he absorbs and absorbs without being able to shut the world out until it becomes too much and he "has a meltdown" or as his teachers call it "sensory overload and debilitating behavioral disintegration" (or sometimes just nervous hysteria). Basically, he can't stop his brain from taking in ALL stimuli, ALL the time.
Imagine being locked in a room similar to a sensory deprivation tank but instead of silence you're bombarded with thick scents (similar to smashing several bottles of different perfumes, aftershaves, etc), chaotic noise so loud it makes your ears ring, and near constant jostling and shoving. For someone with a properly wired brain, being in a crowd is mostly filtered out.. I describe it as being in a crowded restaurant. You know people at other tables are talking, you know there's music on, and you know that there are dozens - if not hundreds - of plates being scraped by forks and knives, but you are perfectly capable of talking to the person at your table in a normal tone of voice and hear them just fine. A lot of that is your brain tuning out the clatter and din and turning it into "background noise". For myself to a lesser extent, my son and others like him, there IS no "background noise". All of it is right there, pressing in against him.
He's learnt to adapt to most situations and we've taken him (with the assistance of countless therapists, teachers, doctors, and other wonderful professionals) through various exercises that help him shut down key intakes. Sometimes, he just shuts down entirely. This becomes obvious when he stares at the ground in front of him, never moving on his own accord but completely pliant to being moved when led by hand. When he does that, we know there's a reason and typically, if he gets forced out of it, the meltdown will occur.
He's learnt to cover his ears if the crowd is too much for him as an outward sign that it's time for us to step aside and find a quiet corner and prefers not to be seen by others when he realizes a meltdown is incoming. When I met up with mom and him last month, he chose to walk away from everyone - including us - in the little raised platform between Small World and the monorail track. We took a seat on one of the moulded cement infinity benches and waited him out. He walked over to a spot next to the bushes and just laid down on the ground. We let him lay there for a couple minutes, then I went over and helped him up and guided him to the bench with us, where he laid back down with his head in my lap. When the fireworks were about to start, he just covered his ears and watched them from that position. He really seemed to enjoy them like that, so we're thinking that's where we'll sit from now on when we take him.
We didn't know about the guest assistance passes, but we made a point of telling the various CMs if we needed assistance and they were all very helpful. Midday, I was exhausted and feeling more than a little faint and dizzy while we were getting ready to enter the line for POTC. I told them to take him without me because I wasn't sure I'd be able to stay on my feet through the line. Either I was having a panic attack or I was suffering from heat exhaustion. Whichever it was, my aunt asked a passing CM if it would be possible for me to wait inside for the rest of my party to reach the loading bay. He wasn't sure, but took us straight to the handicapped entrance's CM and handed us off to him. The handicapped line's loader told us it was fine for me to wait inside for the rest of my group and when they reached the ride, I was allowed to join them from the opposite bay. Yes, I had to remain standing but I was allowed to enter the building and wait there, which helped my symptoms quite a lot. Sometimes, if you can't get help from one place, you can get it from another.