autism/therapy dog/school

[dreamer]

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 already posted this at Special Education forum....

sadly, the other headline in my paper this morning had to do with a local elem principal being arrested with marijuana and engaging in sex acts with teen girls over the weekend. :-(

 

[gcvmom]

Sheesh. There's just no common sense in people anymore.

You need to stop reading that paper!

 

[KTMom91]

My stepmother has a service dog for her seizure disorder. She carries photocopies of the ADA ruling, and hands them out whenever someone tells her that dog can't go in. Therapy dogs, assistance dogs, and seeing eye dogs all fall under the heading of assistance animals. I don't even think it has to be a dog...I've read about monkeys being used as well. Look into the actual letter of the law. I know the ADA specifies "reasonable accomodations" must be made, it's just how you define "reasonable".

 

[WhymeMom?]

Schools generally don't accommodate anything outside the norm......they can't think outside the box......If it is forced they would probably rather put the girl in a seperate setting and not "expose" her/dog to other students.......kinda defeats the purpose of letting other students see how autistic children can cope in the world and learn a little compassion.....

 

[dreamer]

well, LOL< I could stop reading the paper, but---this is the school difficult child went to...it has not changed. :-(

 

[tammyjh]

Yeah, some schools are tough...sadly

We've been lucky. It was the Occupational Therapist (OT) who recommended and alphasmart(word processing device)for daughter in elem. school and she used it in 6th grade too. When she got to 7th grade, all the kids had laptops so it became a non issue.