Autism friendly cinema and my low functioning ds

[jess1975]

My ds is almost four with low functioning autism. At the weekend for the first time we decided to take him to see tinkerbell with our dd (10) at our local cinema which was an autism friendly showing.

He has so little understanding of language that he wouldn't know he was even in a cinema or what a cinema is or how to behave appropriately. Communication levels are at one year old. He would have no concept of a storyline. However we want him to have new experiences. Anyway luckily there were only about ten families at the showing (mostly older kids) and some of the children during the performance shuffled around as expected. We took our ds in to the cinema in his maclaren major otherwise he just wouldn't have sat still even for a few mins. We were close to the front and after about 45 mins in which he had been fairly well behaved as we fed him popcorn etc lol he kept moving my hand to his straps to be released. After a while he was getting quite agitated and I let him out. He was delighted! He spent the next 30 mins walking and jumping around the cinema at the front (there was no one seated in this area) and had an absolute ball just enjoying the sensory element of the big screen.

My question is did I do the right thing by letting him out? Should I just have removed him from the film? Would other parents think I was setting a bad example to their children of how not to behave in the cinema. It was nice to be able to go on a family outing that my dd was able to enjoy also but maybe trips to the cinema are a little ambitious just yet even if they are autism friendly showings! What do you think?

okay. don't mind the meandering or vocalising.

thanks.

Well after reading this I am definately going to go to my local cinema and give this a try!

Usually means no ads either. Some theatres like the Unicorn in London also do "relaxed performances" with a similar aim.

Honestly, I took my DDs to the cinema for the first time last week. A regular showing, with DD1's carer.

Well...we had 5 seats, but ended up only using 2 of them, because DD1 sat on her carer's lap (she gets frightened at even the most tame films) and DDs 2&3 sat on my lap (DD2 was tired and DD3 found it too noisy).

There was plenty of noise, rustling, stage whispers, etc., with a cinema full of 'NT' families!

lougle: I have a mental image of the five of you crammed into two seats!

Cerebra worked with the Sunderland Empire to have a SN friendly showing of the pantomime, this year. They arranged that the cast would come on stage and introduce themselves in and out of character, before the performance.

Thanks so much for all your encouraging words. The tickets were slightly cheaper as well at £3.00 each and carer can go free in some cinemas. At least if it doesn't go well it hasn't cost an arm and a leg. Good luck for anyone giving it a try at the weekend.

It was even more bizarre than that: Imagine [=][ ][ ][ ][=-] - That looked odd

It is meant to be lower volume, lights up, no ads and you can bring your own food and move around, though in practice our local Cineworld apparently can't turn the sound down so still quite loud.

We go really regularly. Dd1 climbs happily over all the seats and swings upside down on any bars she can find and I try to remember to relax and not stress about her! A couple if times we have been to the Covent Garden Odeon and it has been empty apart from us so that has involved much carefree singing and dancing up and down the aisles...

Thanks for the listings, ouryve. I'm already looking forward to taking ds to the cinema for the first time.