Good travel skills are important so the student and the family can have access to leisure activities, family activities and shopping. Older students in Special settings may participate in Work skills so they can eventually work in the community. To do this independently, they must have good travel skills that are developed from an early stage.
Where to go:
-weekly shopping, mainly supermarkets
-restaurants and cafes
-different playgrounds
-indoor play centres
-large shopping malls
-pet shops
-farms for children
-airport
-bowling
-roller skating
-walking in the local community
-air force base
-boat marina, naval ship
-botanical gardens
-zoo
-aquarium
-museums that allow interactive play
How to go:
-walk
-school bus
-public bus
-trains
-tram
Problems we wished to address:
-difficulties with changes to routines/rigidity
-inability to remain seated and belted for the required length of time
-remain seated for longer trips
-safe sitting e.g. not waving arms out of windows.
-sitting in different seats on different days
-sharing a seat with a class mate
-safe walking to the bus, alighting, and getting off the bus
-staying with the group and designated teacher
-remembering the rules for the excursion regarding appropriate social behaviour
-giving experiences to overcome any fears e.g. animals
-looking for landmarks and sign posts at stations
-crossing the road safely.
How to develop travel skills:
1.Practise, practise, practise.
The regularity of our weekly shopping and excursion programs ensured success. However, if it is possible at your school:
-get the children used to travelling in the school bus. After a long break and a new class,the students may have regressed in their travel skills so you may need to focus on just travelling in the school bus and returning to school.
2. Prepare the students with your plans throughout the week by discussing the excursion and showing them visually when and where and what is happening.
3. Discuss rules for travelling in the school bus, in public transport, and when walking. Have visual displays for rules and social stories to support the rules.
4.Don't forget to prepare individual excursion schedules for morning reading and writing work tasks so the students can construct and read about the coming excursion.
5. Keep the parents informed in the Communication books.
6. Use the daily schedule board to show students what part of the day they will be going.
7. Construct mini-schedules for the students who need them. They will need to take mini-schedules on the excursion to work through.
8. Some students become obsessed with a particular seat so you may need to make a visual seating plan to show and follow.
9. Show the students which adult they are allocated to, and who will be holding hands with others.
10. Model good walking to and from the bus, and show student safe places to cross. When I noticed a particular student wanted to walk between cars and buses to cross the road aran between bus and cars after school with a carer, I modelled what could happen using plastic men and toy cars. When another student tantrumed each time we tried to walk, I gave her a reward every few metres, then longer distances, then walked without rewards. The process was very quick and only took about 4 weeks until she walked independently, without any anxiety.
11. Seat an adult next to students who are most likely to indulge in unsafe behaviour. Show them their mini-schedules and have a bag of motivators to help them with travelling. Reward good behaviour.
12. Make sure an adult is always the first to get off the bus for their safety, and also first on, if there is allocated seating.
13. Teach children to put their seat belts on and keep them on. The school bus would not move until all belts were on and students had to wait for the engine to be turned off before they unclicked them. If a student unclicked during the trip, we would stop the bus and wait for the seatbelt to be clicked on.
14. Don't allow students to lean against you, or rest on you while seated.
15. Revisit an excursion to practise their skills.
16. Add a new dimension to extend their skills e.g. add eating their morning tea at a shopping mall after shopping or a BBQ at a playground they are familiar with.
17. We tried to take the students to places where they could experience different things, such as escalators, travelators, stairs and lifts. With adult assistance, most of the children travelled well but you need to be sensitive to those children who cannot cope with any of these modes of travel. If they do not respond well to assistance or motivators, don't force them.
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