Autism Assistance Dogs

I have been wanting to post for a long time about Riley...Leah's Autism Assistance Dog. He's how this blog got started!!!! He's been a blessing to our family and to Leah!

So many people have asked and simply don't understand the role of Riley or any Autism Assistance Dog. He's there to help her gain independence by simply feeling confident enough to go out and perform activities of daily living (play!!!) just like any other child. Additionally, he's there to assist her in therapy, making sure she's confident enough to accomplish the tasks ahead of her. Sometimes he's also part of the therapy too!!!

Additionally, I don't think I ever shared with you how difficult it was to establish ANY KIND OF BOND between Leah and Riley. Leah hated how Riley felt! She simply couldn't stand the textures of him...wet nose, scratchy paws, fluffy fur! Too much input for this little girl! But after almost one year and lots of work and therapy with Riley...I know, can you believe that he's been part of our family for a year...Leah and Riley are a team! They are working together by walking in and out of school, tethered. They work at OT in Battle Creek together, and Riley goes out on the town with Leah daily! Riley is Leah's guardian! Leah looks for Riley when he's not there. She knows that Riley is hers and she needs him to feel confident in her actions! She's already advocating for herself.."Where's Riley", if he's around the corner from her! 3 year old and advocating! That's my girl!!!!!


I wanted to share a story that I read online regarding another little boy and
his dog! It's very similar to Leah's story! Enjoy!

A boy with autism and
his dog find a world in common
By Amy Wilson McClatchy Newspapers

LEXINGTON, Ky. — It's early July, and Michael wants nothing to do with
the dog. The feeling, if you can judge a new puppy's intent, is not mutual.
Michael is a 5-year-old child, diagnosed within the wide autism syndrome
label, who doesn't want to be touched, much less touch the animal in front of
him.
Mercury is a 10-week-old black Labrador who wants nothing more than to
be touched and played with.
If the goal is to make Mercury responsive to
Michael's needs, you first have to get them to acknowledge each other.
And
make no mistake, that's the goal. Because if therapists and dog trainers can
figure out a way to get Mercury to sense what Michael is doing or about to do,
and then disrupt it or comfort him through it, there is fresh reason to think
autistic children can be armed with a new and highly effective — did we mention
wet-nosed? — weapon against a world that doesn't understand them.
But there
is a problem here. Autistic children want little or no eye contact with others.
Dogs crave it. Autistic children are often non-responsive to verbal cues and
praise. Dogs wait for the former and live for the latter. How to get them to
speak each other's language is the issue.
The breakthrough that is to come
in the months ahead for Michael and Mercury will not be a miracle. It will take
weeks of coaxing and more than a little invention. But it will come, when
someone gets the bright idea to open a can of shaving cream.
The idea of
using animals to help human beings is not new. The idea of using horses to help
autistic children with movement and stimulation issues has been around for a
while.
But to use dogs as assistance animals for children with autism is so
complicated that what is happening with Michael and Mercury is, though with some
precedent, sort of being made up as it goes along.
This is how it works: Two
willing and eager parents, Chris and Kim Farthing, explain Michael's behavior
and their needs regarding that behavior to experienced dog trainer Jo Brosius.
Brosius, in turn, explains what she can do with Mercury to Jaci Durham and Peggy
Wittman, an occupational therapy master's candidate and her academic adviser,
who then discuss what Michael might accept — be it closeness, distraction,
companionship — from the dog.
It's a constant communication between each
team member about what is working and what isn't. It's invention at every level,
sometimes with as simple a goal as to get Michael to let Mercury sit next to him
without incident.
"A lot of people think I'm stretching for a miracle, like
I'm trying to make him normal," Kim Farthing says.
She shakes her head no.
Michael, like many children with autism, tends to wander away from home and
familiar boundaries. If Mercury can stop that, if he can even just go with
Michael when he goes, that will be enough.
"I just want Michael safe."
A
good friend had seen a story about autism assistance dogs on a network magazine
show in early 2008.
The Farthings had a lot to think about when inviting a
new permanent "family member" into their home. They have two other children —
Creed, Michael's twin brother, and Jordan, his 8-year-old sister.
Sooner
than expected, in mid-summer, a shiny black Labrador, named after the first
planet from the sun, arrived in Kentucky.
Michael had been diagnosed with
autism just after he and Creed, who is a typical child, turned 2. Michael read
at 4, can speak but doesn't much like to, does not respond when being urgently
searched for, gets fixated on shapes and numbers and lights, tends to negotiate
for what he wants and needs, is in a constant state of distraction and loves
video games and, oh yeah, the solar system.
He tends to "melt down" when
overstimulated, flaying his arms defensively or biting his hand in a gesture of
abject retreat. His immune system, like that of many children with autism, is
shot. He tends to wander away. He has no awareness of social norms or cues.
However, he attends Perryville Elementary School, where he has been placed in a
typical classroom, has a full-time aide and a few hours of special education
training.
Mercury is a puppy, chosen by breed and disposition to be
intensely loyal, non-aggressive and easily trained. He is a treat hound, willing
to do anything for a puppy cookie and/or a tummy rub. He's a fast learner who
likes playing in water.
The Introduction / When introduced to each other for
the first time in July, Michael bit his own hand repeatedly and retreated to the
hands of his mother. Mercury paid attention to anyone who paid attention to him.
Trainer Brosius watched all this carefully. She had worked with disabled
children with a good deal of success before, but this was something new. What,
she wondered, would interest Michael enough to make him work? What would get his
attention?
"I could make the dog do anything. I was sure of that. But
Michael? That was another story."
The duo spent session after session in
each other's company without Michael acknowledging the dog's presence. He could
not bear the feel of the dog's fur on his skin.
Brosius worried that the
puzzle that was Michael wasn't going to give up its secrets.
"I just had to
step into Michael's world and draw him back into mine."
In early fall,
Brosius had a million ideas. Some worked. Michael likes bubbles, so they had the
dog and the boy chase bubbles together. Michael likes things that blink and
spin, so they put LED lights on Mercury's collar.
When they did, Michael
touched the dog's leash.
On that day, his father threw him high in the air
to show his son how happy everyone was with Michael's simple concession. As he
did, Michael kept repeating over and over to his father, "Touch clouds. Touch
clouds. Touch clouds."
Another Approach / Jaci Durham was brought in
because, quite frankly, it was October and Michael still wasn't touching the
dog, and Brosius needed help.
A graduate student in occupational therapy at
Eastern Kentucky University, Durham is the daughter of dog breeders. This was
something she knew she was born to do.
On her first day with the crew at
Brosius' home in Berea, the novice occupational therapist brought a piece of
silk to lay over Mercury, to be, as she told Michael, his "Superdog" cape. She
wanted to somehow entice Michael to touch first the silk, then to remove the
silk and see if he'd touch the dog.
Michael was not buying it.
She had
another thought. She got out a can of Barbasol shaving foam and slathered a flat
tray with the creamy concoction. Together, she and Michael drew shapes of the
planets and numbers in the foam. They put their handprints in the foam. Brosius
got Mercury to put his paw in the tray and leave his print. Then, ever so slyly,
Durham foamed up the black dog and asked Michael to draw the planets on the
docile dog.
To everyone's astonishment, his finger reached out and made the
shape, touching the dog without resistance.
"My God," thought a shocked
Durham, "this stuff they've been teaching me actually works."
The next time
they were together, Durham asked Michael to draw Jupiter on the dog. This time
she had no foam to fool him with.
Michael never balked. There, on the black
dog's perfectly shiny fur, a faint shape of a planet.
Durham found ways to
motivate Michael. Her greatest bargaining tool: "Hippie shakes," whereby they
both sit on the floor and Durham grabs his outstretched legs and shakes them
wildly. It rewards him, focuses him, even sort of helps to organize his
thoughts, says Durham. Most of all, it's leverage. Michael is a negotiator; he
will do most anything for "hippie shakes."
Puzzles At Every Turn / A session
with Durham and Brosius can last 90 minutes or 15, and it's only twice a week.
The training time can be severely limited by Michael's ability to tolerate
sensory input. And problems — puzzles really — can come at every turn.
They
discovered Mercury responded a lot better when spoken to in "an authoritative
voice." What the heck is authoritative to a 5-year-old autistic kid?
The
crew put their heads together. Simple. Kim told Brosius that Michael watched
SpongeBob SquarePants and that he could imitate the villain's voice pretty well.
So they told Michael to do "Plankton voice" when commanding Mercury.
Worked like a charm.
The evidence is pretty strong, says Wittman, that
kids with disabilities are discriminated against.
"Dogs," she says, "create
commonality. Other kids are likely to come up to a kid in a wheelchair if
there's a dog attached. They bridge a gap of differentness."
But autistic
children are not like other children with physical disabilities. The social gap
cannot be bridged by a dog. The dog is there to, perhaps, make the child seem
less frightening to other children, but it is not a panacea for the child's
social differentness.
"It's hard for us to define 'relationships' for these
kids," Wittman says. "Maybe it's why an animal works for them. We define
relationships as some kind of reciprocity. Animals might not come with those
expectations."
A 'Buffer' / Do the Farthings want Mercury to be Michael's
friend?
"I'm not sure he would entirely understand that," Kim says. "I want
Mercury to be his guardian."
"I think dogs are unconditionally loving and
receptive in a way that humans aren't," Durham says. "My parents bought my dog,
Sugar, when I was going through my divorce and I was two hours away from anyone
who loved me. Dogs have a keen intuition about our emotions. They're a buffer.
Mercury can be Michael's buffer."
Nov. 8 is the first night that Mercury
sleeps over at the Farthings'.
Everyone is treating it like a normal Sunday
afternoon session, only Mercury just won't be going home when Durham and
stand-in trainer Amy Hughes do.
Kaywood, the 7-year-old basset hound alpha
dog of the house, is wondering what is up. Mercury, at 5 months old, moves at
the speed of light, sniffing every baseboard, every table leg, everything. He's
called upstairs for therapy.
Michael, not surprisingly, is overwhelmed and
he retreats, as is his custom, into his large closet, which soon enough contains
all of his nine inflatable planets, a pile of his favorite books, a 4-foot-long
fish pillow, Durham, Hughes and Mercury.
"Get off me," Michael says to
Mercury.
Hughes feeds Mercury treats to keep him lying down.
"Can you
read Mercury a book?" Durham asks Michael.
"No."
"He likes to learn,"
says Hughes.
"Hippie shake?" asks Michael.
"You have to do your work
before we do hippie shake," says Durham.
He begins reading "Blue Hat, Green
Hat."
"Michael, let me tell you a secret. Mercury gets cold easily. Can you
move closer to him?"
"No."
The promise of three hippie shakes for
Michael and the delivery of five treats to Mercury get the two of them to agree
to be in the closet together, touching, while Michael reads.
The negotiation
has taken more time than the reading. The dog has paid attention to Hughes,
mostly, as she is the one handing out treats. Still, Michael has not once
objected to Mercury being in the closet with him. He has moved easily into
Mercury's space and only reacted when Mercury has moved, unexpectedly, into his.
Still, no dogs were asked to leave the closet. No therapists either.
Mercury Stays / When Mercury stays behind to spend his first night in
Michael's room, Michael is oblivious to the change in routine. Same could be
said for the dog.
The first morning Mercury wakes up at the Farthings,
Michael is taught how to feed him. This is absolutely crucial. The dog must know
whom he depends upon for food.
Michael is 6 now. He needs reminding, but he
is capable.
Kim and Chris Farthing are beginning to think this could work.
By December, the dog has learned the command "circle Michael." It's a
command Kim can give to get Mercury to run circles around her wandering child.
Or, a permutation of the command into "circle me" can be a playful directive
from Michael.
This piece of progress happened by chance one day in late
November when Mercury began to chase his own tail about the same time that
Michael began to have a meltdown. The dog's spinning stopped Michael cold. He
calmed down to watch the dog, mesmerized.
Kim reported this to Brosius and,
with careful redirection of everyone's efforts, Mercury has learned to sense
Michael's meltdowns and begins to chase his tail on his own when the child
becomes flustered, agitated, uncommunicative and flailing. The tail-chasing ends
the meltdown before it starts. Good dog.
Michael still has times when he
doesn't want Mercury near him. He still runs away from him. But these days, more
often than not, Mercury will follow. Michael will speed up. Mercury will speed
up, then they will start flying around the kitchen, Mercury sliding rear-first
into the lower cabinets, and everyone is friends again.
Michael and his twin
brother sleep in the same double bed with Mercury between them. Since the dog
has joined them, Michael gets out of bed much less often to wander the house at
night. When Michael and Creed "camp out" in the living room, Michael has even
made sure Mercury is invited to the sleepover as well.
Mercury also has been
taught by Brosius to play "hide and seek" with Michael, a precursor to teaching
him to scent and track should that ever become necessary.
So far, the dog
has not failed to find Michael in the bed, under the bed or in the closet.
The Farthings know there is a long way to go. But they know how far they've
come.
Brosius, who has not been paid for any of her services save for
transportation, has now begun work with four other autistic children and their
dogs.
She says she will stay with Michael and Mercury "as long as they need
me. It's not done until they say it's done."
Basic Facts On Autism And
Assistance Dogs
In 2005, Autism Spectrum Disorder was diagnosed in one in
166 births in the United States. Autism is the fastest-growing developmental
disorder in the U.S., with a 10 percent to 17 percent annual growth rate. The
Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta is suggesting that soon there will be one
child affected in every third-grade classroom.
There is no official count or
national registry of autism assistance dogs. The number of training centers
nationwide has grown since 4 Paws for Ability (4pawsforability.org) founded the
concept in 1998, followed quickly by Northstar Dogs (northstardogs.com) in 2000.
A few regional programs have had some success. The dogs are not free, with most
organizations requiring at least a $5,000 contribution toward the cost of the
dog and its training. Individual programs vary.