Accomplished public speaker, published author of “Finding Kansas: Living and Decoding Asperger’s Syndrome” and Autism Ambassador, Aaron Likens lectured at noon on Nov. 11 in the Southeast Missouri State University Center Ballroom B.

Likens’ lecture provided awareness for law enforcement in knowing how to handle situations with people who have autism.

According to Likens, autism is a neurologically based developmental disability that seriously affects a person’s ability to communicate, socialize and make judgments.

When Likens described what autism looks like, he described it as being (peculiar).

Connecting autism to the movie “Rain Man,” Likens said similar behaviors can be seen.

“You may have an individual on a street corner rocking back and forth, saying the same thing over and over,” Likens said.

Likens said a person could walk by and think nothing of it until 30 minutes later when they see the individual doing the same thing, resulting in calling the police.

In some cases, people with autism tend to be non-verbal, which can cause problems with communicating.

Likens recalled an incident where a teenage boy with autism one weekend became very aggressive. Prior to the incident, the young man had not been aggressive nor did he have any violent tendencies.

“[He] tried to destroy his room, attacked his parents, tried to bite them,” Likens said. “These behaviors went on and on, and nobody could make sense of it because this was completely out of place.”

A behavior analyst noticed the young man would continuously put his hand up to his mouth, so he suggested he go to the dentist.

“While they went to a dentist, they found out he had an abscessed tooth, which was so infected it was pushing up into the sinus cavity,” Likens said.

Likens said had the situation happened to someone else, they would have been able to explain what was wrong before it worsened.

Autism can affect a person’s sensory responses to normal levels of light, sound, touches, odors and taste.

Likens, who has Asperger syndrome, told of a time he called the worst pain in his life.

“I was downstairs and my brother was in the basement,” Likens said. “He started playing the drums. After hearing that low level bass noise within a few seconds, it was the worst pain I ever felt in my life.”

Likens’ initial reaction to the drums was to find external pain to supersede the internal pain he was feeling.

“My subconscious took over,” Likens said. “I started hitting myself in the head as hard as I could.”

Likens has seen that some people do things like bump against walls or wear weighted vests because it is relaxing to them.

He said law enforcement should keep an open mind when dealing with individuals who exhibit such behavior.

“Whether the sensory stimulation is a weighted vest or pushing into their skin, unless that behavior is going to hurt themselves or somebody else, it’s best to let it continue,” Likens said.

While Likens’ presentation was happening, Wes Blair, the chief of police for the Cape Girardeau Police Department, was there, and he had a few things to say about it.

Blair said officers had been sent to autism training and crisis intervention training that week.

“Just so you know how to deal with people that are both developmentally challenged or going through any kind of crisis,” Blair said.