One of our esteemed Advisory Board Members, Dr. Stephen Shore, was recently interviewed by Guest Editor, Gretchen McIntire (Leary), for Zoom Autism Magazine. Dr. Shore is a professor at Adelphi University, best-selling author, international speaker and autism expert. He provided valuable travel tips for globetrotters who are on the autism spectrum along with highlights from his travels (49 countries and 47 states) to date.
We’ve included an excerpt from the interview here and you can read the article in-full by following the link at the end of this post.
Gretchen: You’ve been to so many amazing places around the globe. Where was your first international trip to and why did you go there?
Stephen: My first international trip was to Dublin, Ireland. I went because there was a conference organizer who asked me if I would speak at his conference and it seemed to be a pretty cool thing to do. I also thought it would be incredibly complicated to apply for and get a passport, but it wasn’t. So that was my first trip. I talked about life on the Autism Spectrum. Somebody at the end of my presentation gave me a small harp and so I plucked it a little bit and I realized I could just play Auld Lang Syne on it, so I did. That was on a pentatonic scale. So that was fun. They liked it. They all sang, and it was good.
Gretchen: What is one tip that has greatly helped you cope with the anxiety of being on a plane?
Stephen: I guess I’m lucky because I’ve never been anxious while on a plane unless I thought it was going to get delayed and I would miss a connecting flight. I enjoy being on a plane and even enjoy the turbulence. I know that there are many people who do get anxious. Some things that they can do is to relax by taking deep breaths or think about something else. Planes are pretty tough and can take all the turbulence that gets thrown at them.
Gretchen: Have you ever traveled by train? If so, where did you go? What was it like sensory wise?
Stephen: Places I have been on a train include Alaska (which was a great sightseeing trip), New Zealand, and also from Portugal to Spain I did an overnight train once. There was a nice rhythmic pattern to train travel as it goes across the tracks; particularly the scenes of the tracks. –
Read the rest of the interview on Zoom Autism Magazine
Credit: Zoom Autism Magazine, Issue 16 https://geekclubbooks.com/
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