Well I am always moaned at when watching movies or TV for talking, laughing Etc. and I also can't easily control the level of my voice since I'm often told I'm shouting when to myself I sound quiet. Personally I wouldn't risk going to the cinema unless it was an autism friendly screening, please
click here for an example, it's excellent that the issue has been recognised by some companies at least. I find it extremely difficult to stay totally quiet and it's the same even if I'm watching something on my own, but if I'm with company I have a virtually uncontrollable urge to say something and I will normally say something without thinking, in fact even if I'm conscious of it, it's extremely difficult to control.
I will try to approach this from both sides and with as little bias as possible. The cinema is an extremely difficult situation because even if a person has a condition that is causing him/her to make sounds during a screening, they are still annoying lots of other paying customers, but on the other side they're being discriminated against and treated badly because of their condition, although in most situations the vast majority of people wouldn't take their condition into account or they wouldn't even recognise or understand it. People should obviously have a certain amount of extra tolerance when they realise a person has a condition, but then there's the question of whether an autistic person should have to announce their condition to the staff on arrival because understandably a lot of autistic people are uncomfortable doing this? Even if the staff are aware, the majority of the general public aren't likely to know and they can hardly announce that they've got an autistic person in the cinema to everyone and even if they did some people still wouldn't tolerate it. After the autistic women told people about her condition she was still treated with abuse and contempt by many people which really is unacceptable and really they should have been removed too, but imagine the uproar if the staff did this and also the autistic women would be outside at the same time as the people shouting abuse at her which could put her at risk under those circumstances.
So how can this situation be improved? Well having autistic friendly screenings is an excellent idea as long as they're done properly and advertised well.
How should an autistic person be dealt with when they're annoying other paying customers if they have attended a normal screening? This is a very difficult question because the staff could be pressured by hundreds of paying customers to remove the person and even if the staff do understand that the person is autistic they're still in an extremely difficult position. In my opinion it takes a lot of discretion and tact to deal with a situation like this, if I was a member of staff and was being inundated with complaints about an autistic person I would firstly attempt to take the autistic person aside into a private place if they were willing, this however may not be easy in itself if the autistic person then gets upset at being discriminated against, they will obviously know something is wrong when being asked to miss the movie and at worst they could even have a meltdown. This is where a lot tact is involved, I would attempt to approach it in a positive way by stating that I have something extra special for them, if there are autistic screenings available I would offer them a season pass to all autistic screenings so they can watch lots of movies on the house, but if there was no autistic screenings available I would still need to find something in compensation that more than makes up for missing the movie, perhaps an amazon voucher for considerably more than the cost of entry so they can watch movies freely online or similar.
What does the member of staff do if the autistic person simply refuses to budge no matter what even if they use the utmost of discretion and tact? This is the most difficult situation of all, at this stage the autistic person could be very upset, possibly having a meltdown and causing a scene where hundreds of paying customers are extremely annoyed, all putting severe pressure on the staff to remove the person. Unfortunately if all other methods have been tried it does in my opinion eventually get to the stage where a person will have to be forcibly removed even if they are autistic, this would need to be done by trained security, if there was none available (and there should be) then unfortunately the police would be required. The security or police would also need to use the utmost of discretion so they can use as little force as possible to get the autistic person to leave, compensation should still be offered to the autistic person however if possible.
People here may think I'm being harsh by saying that an autistic person causing a disruption should be removed, but in this situation if an autistic person who is upsetting lots of people doesn't get removed they could be put at risk even though it's wrong.
