Driving has been very frustrating with my Aspie son. He doesnt know how to get places, unless he repeatedly drives there, and google maps/navigation is a distraction. Then this morning I was letting him drive to school, and there was a stopped school bus on the other side of road that he “did not see”. By the time I saw it, i yelled “stop”. His response was typical aspie, “there was never one all the other mornings I have driven so I wasnt looking for it”. I really want him to be able to drive to school on the days he has after school activities since sometimes i travel for work. So far I have driven with him in the am, brought the car home, and then driven to his spot in the afternoon and he has driven home. I was getting hopeful until this morning. The sad reality is that if another driver does something against the rules, he will be toast. He already had an accident a few months back where he hit a neighbors mailbox. He passed the road test and got his license, but I wont let him drive independently much. Has anyone had success with an older child driving? He did very well with the drivers ed instructor last year, but someone was telling him what to and where to go. With my older one, the driving just happened. i know my son is still just shy of 17 yo, and there is plenty of time, but do they ever get better at it? or figure out where they are going?
i will not let him drive to school and back until I feel he is ready, but any tips, hints, or encouragement that it will get better, would help. I imagine the world is filled with Aspie’s and people on the spectrum who drive perfectly fine.
Oh to add, our state is one where they can get their license at 16. so he has had a permit since 15, and even once he got his license 9 months ago, its still mostly supervised driving. the only time he has driven alone is 3 right hand turns to get to a gaming place, and then home 3 right hand turns, and on his 6th time, he hit the neighbors mailbox. Also, I let him take the road test and get his license, to get that stress out of the way, knowing he still needed to be supervised and not to just " hand over car keys"
I don’t have any suggestions, but I do want to encourage you to continue your correct decision of not letting your son drive unsupervised when he is clearly not capable of doing so. My son, also an Aspie, does not drive. He did get driver instruction, but failed his test almost immediately when he started backing out of the parking spot without looking; in the same test, he also did some other things that indicated inattention. We’re not encouraging him to drive at this time; this is a kid who runs into stopped inanimate objects when he’s cycling.
Uber is much cheaper than the lawsuit he’d face if the next time he ran into a child instead of a mailbox.
In our area the driving schools have special sessions for those kids. I don’t know much about them but it might be worthwhile
The biggest regret you might have is getting his license at all, the longer they stay on learners, the better, in that you don’t pay insurance. Now he is insured, you will never get him off if he lives with you where you cars also live.
Sorry I don’t have any encouragement to offer, just commiseration. My 17 year old Aspie son is a brand-new college freshman and is not driving. He has had private instruction twice and two solid years now of driving practice, but he is not ready to drive on his own. At this point, I’m not sure when he will be. Fortunately, he doesn’t really need a car on campus, but it was very draining on me during his high school years, and there were things he missed out on because I just could not get him where he needed to be.
I just know neither he nor I could live with it if he hurt someone or was hurt himself.
It depends on the kid. My Aspie is now 27. He attended an alternative HS with a program for Aspies and other kids with issues who weren’t thriving in the public school system. There was an entire YEAR when he was the only student out of about 120 who actually had a driver’s license. He was very popular and actually made money as a private taxi service, which we learned about after graduation. He now drives a USPS truck for a living.
At the HS, there were kids who received special driving lessons from instructors trained by the office of vocational rehab and disability. I know some of them began driving regularly around age 20 or so, which indicates that they took longer to mature. My son took regular driver’s ed at our HS and worked with H.
Depends on the kid. The neighbors kid graduated from college but lives with his parents and still doesn’t drive although he had(has) a drivers license. He is doing Ok in life but I am glad he isn’t out on the roads much if ever. I trust that the OP will know when he isn’t a hazard to others.