As far as anyone can tell, training a service dog to track an autistic child as if he were a fugitive is a novel idea. But a number of autism experts say that given the potential hazards, it's worth a try. It is just one aspect of Jake's baffling neurological condition, but combined with his limited communication skills, utter lack of fear and inability to process the emotion in the simplest rebuke, the running has become his family's most profound source of worry. A 1998 study from the San Francisco-based Life Expectancy Project found that mortality rates for autistic children are significantly higher than the national average. Some autism researchers believe that self-injurious behaviors such as running away are responsible in great part for those numbers.
Autistic kids look normal, as a rule.
And if you see a kid like that on a curb, you don't necessarily slow down. That kid could just dart in front of you. Keeping track of Jake isn't as easy as locking the doors. For starters, he knows how to work the double deadbolts, his mother said, and tends to leave the house without fanfare. Her worry is intensified by the fact that Jake has become obsessed with swimming pools, a common behavior among the autistic, yet he doesn't know how to swim.