Autistic child, family getting to know new service dog

[aculady]

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/may/10/051009dog/

Another tether dog that the teacher is expected to handle...

[fledchen]

When I was in school, kids with severe physical or mental disabilities had a HUMAN aide with them at all times. Why is that so out of fashion now?

[aculady]

Human aides are out of fashion because the school district has to pay them. The schools here in Florida get an extra $2000-$3000 per special education child per year to pay for additional support, accommodations, and instruction. This isn't nearly enough to cover the cost of a full-time one-on-one aide.

[bj2circeleb]

Within Australia the amount of funding differs per child depending on their needs and the types of support they will require. It is up to the school in consultation with the parents and other relevant professionals to decide how the money will be spent, and whether that is a full time human aide, or a part-time aide and other supports. Every disability is different and every child is affected in different ways and as such they should all recieve individualised funding. That does not really happen here either, but they are assessed and graded by level of severity of the disability and that level determines how much funding is given. As is the case everywhere the level of funding is never enough and childrend do tend to be classified as a level higher they they really are, but on the most part they would be getting at least 90% of the funding that they do require, and that is way more than 2000 - 3000 per child, especailly for those with severe disabilities. However the child in this article is in a special education class, which is different again too!!

I am however yet to understand how having a dog in the classroom for the teacher to control helps the teacher to look after a disabled child. I would have thought it was simply another child in the class, and more work for the teacher and not less!!

The worst part is that the comments at the bottom and saying that that the dog is not neutured, which is very disturbing, especailly when the dog and child will be tethered!! Also I fail to see how much training could have gone on when the dog is being placed at 14 months of age. Tethering aside there are many other concerning issues about this dog and the program that supposedly trained him!!!

[Roxie]

I tried to register to leave my comment..... but it has to email me instructions... and I've waited 10 min for the instructions. I can't wait on them longr as I have things I need to get done during the business hours.

I am disgusted with the whole "autism service dog movement" any way. It has been set up solely for profits of greedy SD training organizations who have identified a large group of desperate parents of young children who will try/pay for anything that might make their kids "better".  When a trained loving family pet can do the same (or better) work for the child with autism.

These desperate families are pidgeons waiting to be caught.

When dogs in-tact like this and a very large breed are being placed with a child who may or may not have the attention to prediction or the strength and snap-decision making skills is tied to a bundle of testosterone.... that is child neglect and endangerment to me.

Aaargh!!! just my 

Roxie

[aculady]

We are looking at training an actual service dog for my 12 y.o. profoundly gifted AS son to help with sensory processing issues, i.e. helping with navigation, alerting him to traffic, people calling his name, familiar individuals in unfamiliar contexts, etc. A guide dog or a guide/hearing dog would have a lot of the skills he would need, but I understand that most guide programs are reluctant to work with children and reluctant to work with autism spectrum visual and mobility issues, so we will probably end up going the OT route. (okay, technically the OPT - owner's parents trained)

He is homeschooled, so classroom access won't be an issue until college, and obviously, the teacher would never be responsible for handling the dog, and college students should be able to cope with having a dog in class without being distracted and unable to control themselves, one would hope.

What really upsets me about these tether situations is that they have the potential to make it harder for my son to use an actual task-trained dog to actually mitigate his disability.

He has demonstrated the maturity and conscientiousness to be responsible for a dog, and he understands the need to consider the dog's needs first, and the limitations on what a dog can do. He is involved in the daily care and ongoing training of my husband's service dog, so he knows what he is getting into.

It is a WAAAY different situation than tying a dog to a child and hoping the dog can babysit, but when I mentioned at a recent homeschool get-together that we might be training a service dog for him, a number of the other parents in our homeschool group looked puzzled, and finally one of them said something like, "We knew he was on the spectrum , but we never dreamed that you had problems with him running off. He seems so mature and well-behaved when he is out." Their conception of what a dog could do for an autistic person was limited to tethering. It took half an hour to explain what tasks were really possible and how useful they would be.

[bj2circeleb]

What really upsets me about these tether situations is that they have the potential to make it harder for my son to use an actual task-trained dog to actually mitigate his disability.

It is a WAAAY different situation than tying a dog to a child and hoping the dog can babysit, but when I mentioned at a recent homeschool get-together that we might be training a service dog for him, a number of the other parents in our homeschool group looked puzzled, and finally one of them said something like, "We knew he was on the spectrum , but we never dreamed that you had problems with him running off. He seems so mature and well-behaved when he is out." Their conception of what a dog could do for an autistic person was limited to tethering. It took half an hour to explain what tasks were really possible and how useful they would be.

I can sympathise totally with what you are saying here. I know of many home only use service dogs here in Australia who work at home with disabled children, and do some amazing work, BUT as the child does not have the emotional maturity to give the dog appropraite leadership in a public place the dogs do not go out in public. The guide dog programs here, have since the early 1970's been given out their top quality failures to people with disabilities and many many of these dogs have done some incredible work with children with all sorts of disabilities including those with autism, and also those who are blind. BUT again they are placed as PETS and not as service dogs. They are now doing specific task training for those who are going to blind children so the dog can help the child at home, in the park, etc, but they are still only pets and have never been and never will be considered anything else.

In terms of limited understanding of tasks, i find that all the time I try to explain PSD. The concept is that emotional support is the only thing these dogs really do for such people, and it can take me up to an hour to explain what they can really do. It was only yesterday that I was told yet again that we do not have any laws anywhere in Australia for real PSD, as all the laws require the dogs to be performing tasks and real PSD do not perform tasks!!!

For me it has nothing to do with these dogs being in public places, most of them are relatively well behaved pet type dogs. It is very very clear to everyone around that they do not behave to the standard expected of guide dogs and which I also expect of and demand of Brooke. I do not really care who has dogs in public places provided they are well behaved, clean, healthy and unobtrusive to the public. Even if having a dog with you does make you feel better, the simple reality is that there are hundreds of thousands of real tasks which dogs can be trained to do to help with these disabilies, but people do not think that far and only think of emotional support. The other simple reality is that the more a dog does for someone the more they are able to be out and about and participating in their communities which is supposed to be what these dogs help with, and one would think that you would want a dog to do all that it can do, and not nothing at all, except to sit there looking pretty!!!

I have also heard time and time again that the real purpose of Autism service dogs is tethering and this is the most pathetic part of it. Even a child tethered to a parent is going to be safer and much closer to the parent than one tetherd to a dog!! A child tethered to a dog is done so on a 6 ft lead, and then the parent has a 6 ft lead also, making the child at least 12 ft from the parent, and yet is tethered to the parent they are only 6 ft away!!! I am sick of hearing that we are not open enough to the need for these dogs. If they can explain how they can gaurantee the dogs safety and well being, as well as how it is safe for the child, I would love to hear it!!!