Autism Service Dogs for Children Part 4

From Service Dog Training

This is the fourth part of a series on the risks of autism service dogs for young children. Links to other parts of the series:

Introduction: The Lassie Phenomenon

Part 1: Tethering

Part 2: Search and Rescue and Preventing Escape

Part 3: Facilitation Social Interaction and Inconsistent Handling

Autism Service Dogs at School

An issue of much contention lately has been the use of autism service dogs by young children in the classroom. On one side of the issue, the parents of the children using the dogs insist the dog should be in the classroom to improve their child's focus, prevent behavioral issues, and keep the child safe. On the other side of the argument are school officials who point to the difficulty of managing a dog in a grade school classroom and concerns about the safety of other children. While I generally support the use of service dogs in the public school environment for students who are able to independently control the dog, I believe the risks and difficulties of a young child with autism using a service dog at school outweigh any potential benefits the dog may have.

No dog is perfect, therefore, someone must always be responsible for the care and behavior of the dog. A young child is not capable of responding to the variety of situations that can arise with a dog in school, which means a responsible adult must be available to take care of the dog for both normal care requirements such as watering, toileting and moving from place to place, and in extraordinary situations, such as the illness or injury of the dog or the student, emergency evacuations, or the dog's misbehavior. The classroom teacher or class aide cannot be responsible for this care, as they have other duties that would not permit them to care for both their class and the dog in certain circumstances. For instance, if a class of 10 special education students and one service dog had one primary teacher and two aides, and the class had to evacuate the building for a fire alarm, the teacher and aides' first priority must be to get the children out of the building and not to manage a dog.

In addition, according to the ADA, the school cannot be required to provide care for the service dog. The law dictates that the handler of the dog is responsible for the dog’s care. This has resulted in cases where parents wish to attend school with their child and the service dog. This poses several difficulties. Since it is common for parents to refuse to send their child to school if the dog does not accompany the child, that raises the question that if the parent is the person responsible for handling the dog, and the parent is sick, does the child miss school? This would mean that over the course of the school year, the child would miss school every time the child is sick, every time the parent is sick, and any time the dog might be sick. If the parent was unable to handle the dog for a long period of time due to a significant illness, the child might miss a large amount of school.

Also, one of the purported benefits of a child having an autism service dog is that the presence of the dog normalizes social interaction. As a former elementary school teacher, I have observed how the presence of a parent in the classroom changes the dynamics of social interaction between young children. If the parent is with the child 24/7, the lack of developmentally appropriate peer interaction caused by the presence of the parent would far outweigh any potential social interaction facilitated by the presence of the dog. In fact, having a parent present at all times is likely to make the child a more compelling target for teasing any time the parent might be gone for some reason.

The other danger is the one inherent in having a large dog around a number of children without having a consistent, responsible handler monitoring the behavior of the dog and the children. Any dog will bite if annoyed or threatened sufficiently, and children are capable of a great amount of unintentionally cruel behavior. Presented with a passive dog, a child may try to climb onto a dog, poke pencils up the dog's nose (true story), pull the dog's fur, tail and ears, poke the dog in the eye, or throw things at the dog. Enough of this sort of behavior over time can provoke an aggressive response from even the most forgiving dog. A small child cannot protect themselves from such a response, and may be seriously injured. The presence of a service dog in the classroom would require watching every move of every child and the dog to insure the dog was never harassed, hurt, or taunted by any student, including the child the dog is supposed to be assisting. This is a level of micromanagement that is simply not possible in most elementary classrooms.

Miscellaneous Concerns

The tasks attributed to autism service dogs for children continue to grow. In this section I'll briefly look at some recent additions to the task list for these dogs.

• The dog alerts and summons a caregiver when the child is approached by a stranger. This would require the dog to bark or otherwise attract attention when approached by a stranger. A dog cannot tell if a stranger is a good stranger or a bad stranger. This could result in an autism service dog barking at emergency services personnel and getting shot as a dangerous dog, or barking at a substitute teacher in school. A dog taught to bark at strangers may also bark at potential new friends for the child, further restricting the child's social interaction.

• Keeping a child from eating inappropriate objects. A dog cannot determine what is and is not acceptable food for a child to eat. A dog that is trained to keep a child from eating rocks may also try to keep the child from eating hard candy or any food that could remotely resemble a rock from the dog's point of view. Likewise, if the dog is used to seeing the child eat a particular food, the dog may not be able to stop the child from eating an unacceptable object that resembles an appropriate food.

• Several service dog organizations advertise that their dogs can chase down and either retrieve or pin down a fleeing child. This is extremely dangerous! For a service dog to retrieve a running child, the dog would either have to get in front of the dog and physically knock the child down, or grab the child with his mouth. If the child runs into the street and the dog follows the child, not only the child but also the dog is at risk of being hit by a car. If the dog knocks down the child on a hard surface, the child could hit their head and become seriously injured.

• One service dog organization, the Dogwish Foundation, claims their dogs are able to perceive the brainwaves of the child with autism and intervene in those brainwaves to prevent the symptoms of the autism spectrum disorder. The Dogwish Foundation has not produced any research to back up these absurd claims. In addition, many business complaints have been lodged against the trainer’s pet training business, however, people still buy these dogs for their children.

--To Be Continued--

--Tiffany Huggard-Lee 10:23, 17 October 2009 (CDT)

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