Challenges of Service Dog Ownership for Families with Autistic Children
From Service Dog Training
Challenges of Service-Dog Ownership for Families with Autistic Children: Lessons for Veterinary Practitioners.
Contents |
Overview
This study had the stated objective identifying and describing the challenges of integrating a service dog for a child with autism into the home and community. The study included 10 families and 11 dogs (one was replaced during the study). The children ranged in age from 4.5-14 at placement. Parents were interviewed during placement training, and then every three months for either 6 or 12 months. All data was collected through semi-structured and open ended interviews. Through these interviews, the researchers identified certain challenges that were often reported.
Results
The most frequently identified challenges were access issues in public places, overbearing social acknowledgements impeding the ability of the family to complete routine daily tasks, cultural issues, problems with the school system both at the institutional level and with the families of other students, the extra time and work needed to maintain the dog’s training and basic care, issues with the child and dog bonding due to the child’s behaviors, and behavioral and training issues which led to the return of 2 dogs during the study period. One of these dogs was replaced, the other was not.
Other Notes
The researcher notes there was a honeymoon period in the first 3 months after placement. Families did not tend to identify challenges in the placement until the 6 month interview. The researcher also notes that social interaction with the general public which is first described as meaningful is later described as burdensome. Also, while the authors still believe benefits of these dog placements outweigh the challenges, they give no data to support that statement.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The strengths in this paper was primarily in the open-ended nature of the interviews which allowed parents to freely describe the challenges they perceive instead of asking if they have experienced ones defined by the research team. Another strength is that this paper followed the teams over time, thus overcoming the honeymoon period common in service dog placement. The weaknesses are significant though. No effort was made to interview the actual users of the dog, simply stating there were communication barriers. It is hard to believe with such a range of ages that none of the recipients would be able to communicate opinions or experiences to the researchers. In addition, the sample size was very small, and not all respondents were followed for the same period of time.
Citation
Burrows, K. E., & Adams, C. L. (2008). Challenges of Service-Dog Ownership for Families with Autistic Children: Lessons for Veterinary Practitioners. Journal of Veterinary Medical Education , 559-566.
