Green Bay Campus Hosts Panel Discussion on Autism Awareness

News Beat

The Green Bay campus hosted a free panel discussion Sept. 10 concerning autism awareness and the relationships that currently exist between families and persons with autism and the local law enforcement community.Law enforcement and nursing students, along with community members and police officers, learned about autism, a neurobiological disorder, and how law enforcement officers can better handle situations when communicating with individuals with this disorder. Those with the disorder process information differently. For example, some people think in images and colors instead of words, and similar to learning a foreign language, there’s a period of time where the individual in translating what is being said and it takes time for them to respond to questions. Additionally, room noise and lighting can often be overwhelming to an individual with autism. Green Bay Police Chief Tom Molitor explained during a spring 2014 advisory board meeting with School of Justice Studies departments from all three Wisconsin campuses that there was a huge need in his department for training in communicating with autistic citizens. Law enforcement officers need to learn how to interact with autistic individuals—whether they’re children or adults. The six-person panel was made up of the president of the Autism Society of Northeastern Wisconsin (ASNEW), a Green Bay police officer who is trained as a Community Crisis Intervention Team member, a local public school police liaison officer, parents of children with autism, an autism specialist for Green Bay Public Schools and an autism therapy provider.   Panelists told attendees that police liaison officers sometimes have difficulty with identifying students with autism due to privacy issues and laws. School officers said they would love to have more information about students with autism and are willing to have informal or formal meeting with parents and students with autism. Currently, this is how autism is responded to in the law enforcement community: Sometimes autistic ...

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