dreamer
New Member
In my paper this morning was an article about a little girl with autism who has a therapy dog. Seems the sd is questioning whether or not they are going to allow her to have her therapy dog at school. Is it common to NOT permit her to have the therapy dog? I am not sure if therapy dogs fall under same guidelines as service dogs. (altho it also seems to me I recently heard of a case where a local school refused to permit a seeing eye dog for a blind kid.....grrr)
I do know when my sons ortho and 2 neuros and 1 psychiatrist recommended a word processor for my son at school, several teachers refused to permit the device, and it was a very loud battle in IEP meetings over that issue, even tho principal was on board as was Occupational Therapist (OT) and PT at sons school- the teachers simply refused.....and continued to refuse even after it was put in the iep.
I do undestand how some assitive devices, or especially a therapy dog or service dog might take time for classmates and school mates to get used to......BUT I also think it could be a valuable life lesson for the classmates and schoolmates to learn the um...ins and outs of how to behave in presence of a service or therapy dog. It just seems to me there would not/should not be any question about "allowing it" Do you think the school can really not allow it?
(ironically my kids school - the principal brought his non service, non therapy dog to school every school day for 4 years, until it was brought to a higher ups attention)
I do know when my sons ortho and 2 neuros and 1 psychiatrist recommended a word processor for my son at school, several teachers refused to permit the device, and it was a very loud battle in IEP meetings over that issue, even tho principal was on board as was Occupational Therapist (OT) and PT at sons school- the teachers simply refused.....and continued to refuse even after it was put in the iep.
I do undestand how some assitive devices, or especially a therapy dog or service dog might take time for classmates and school mates to get used to......BUT I also think it could be a valuable life lesson for the classmates and schoolmates to learn the um...ins and outs of how to behave in presence of a service or therapy dog. It just seems to me there would not/should not be any question about "allowing it" Do you think the school can really not allow it?
(ironically my kids school - the principal brought his non service, non therapy dog to school every school day for 4 years, until it was brought to a higher ups attention)
