Safety skills are among the most important — and sometimes most overlooked — independence goals for autistic children, particularly given the elevated safety risks some autistic children face, including elopement and difficulty recognizing danger.
Why Safety Skills Deserve Deliberate Teaching
Typical developmental safety awareness — recognizing danger, understanding social boundaries with strangers, knowing what to do in an emergency — often needs more explicit, deliberate teaching for autistic children than the more incidental, observational learning that develops it in many neurotypical children. This isn't a deficit to be embarrassed about; it simply means these skills often need to be a specific, planned part of a child's learning goals rather than assumed to develop automatically.
Stranger and Body Safety
Body safety and stranger awareness concepts worth teaching explicitly include: understanding the difference between safe adults (parents, teachers, identified trusted adults) and strangers, appropriate responses if approached by an unfamiliar person (with a plan discussed in advance, matched to your child's communication level), and body autonomy concepts — understanding they can say no to unwanted touch and who is allowed to help with things like bathroom or dressing assistance.
Home Safety
Home safety skills worth building include: understanding dangerous items and areas (stoves, cleaning products, medications, stairs) and appropriate boundaries around them, basic fire safety awareness, including what to do if a smoke alarm sounds, and understanding which household items require adult permission or supervision to use.
Water Safety
Given the elevated drowning risk associated with elopement in autistic children (covered in Elopement and Wandering: Safety Strategies), water safety awareness and, ideally, adapted swimming lessons are a particularly high-priority safety skill area for many families.
Communicating in an Emergency
Teaching your child how to communicate basic identifying information (name, address, or a parent's phone number, in whatever communication modality works for them) and what to do in a genuine emergency (calling 911, finding a trusted adult) is valuable, particularly as children get older and spend more time in less supervised settings.
Community and Street Safety
As children get older, safety skills expand to include: street crossing safety, understanding traffic and vehicle awareness, and appropriate behavior in community settings like stores or public transportation, which connects to the broader independence goals covered in Money and Community Skills for Older Autistic Children.
Teaching Safety Skills Using ABA Principles
Like other daily living skills, safety skills are most effectively taught by breaking them into specific, teachable steps, practicing in low-stakes settings before relying on the skill in a genuine safety situation, and reinforcing appropriate safety responses consistently.
Practicing Without Creating Anxiety
It's worth teaching safety skills in a way that builds genuine competence and confidence, rather than instilling excessive fear — matter-of-fact, practiced responses tend to serve a child better than an anxious, alarming framing of danger.
For Lansing-Area Families
Our BCBA, Kimberly Blazer, can build individualized safety skill goals into your Lansing-area child's treatment plan, matched to their specific age and needs. Our Individual ABA Therapy service is designed around exactly this kind of goal. our in-home ABA therapy in Lansing page has more information, or Get Started Today to get started.
This article is part of our complete guide, Building Independence: A Guide to Daily Living Skills. Clinically reviewed by Kimberly Blazer, BCBA.