bex1

How old are you Nothing wrong with my tags, Check your post #25 where you have used the word "vegetable", so no words put in your mouth there. Think it's you that needs to check the capitalised intensifiers, since it was me using them to highlight your comments.

....Can you not be bothered to read the previous links? Just a couple of further examples, as you insist on evidence, I'd love to send more but conscious of using up so much space that should really be being debated in another topic! Try this piece of text lifted directly from a website regarding the Irish Guide Dogs.

"Irish Guide Dogs and Child Autism
Irish Guide Dogs has shared their expertise with Support Dogs, the only charity in the UK to train Seizure Alert Dogs and now working to train Autism Assistance Dogs.

Irish Guide Dogs has already identified a number of direct benefits of guide and assistance dogs in the lives of families living with autism. Having an assistance dog as a constant companion seems of benefit to autistic children.

As it is for any child, having a pet dog teaches the child about responsibility. When autistic children bond and interact with their assistance dogs, there appears to be an improvement in the child's behavior and socialization skills.

The assistance dogs also represent increased safety and freedom for the child and family to go out from the home, making full public access to shops, restaurants, hotels and schools easier thus expanding the child’s capabilities to experience more from life.

Assistance dogs seem to have a calming effect on autistic children thereby increasing the child's attention span and improving aptitude for learning. It appears that the presence of the assistance dog lowers the aggression level and adds a comfort for the child when upset, which in turn helps to reduce stress for all family members."

...and this, a research project on the

Effects of Animal Assisted Therapy on a Child with Autism.

Jen Baról/Special to The Tribune
Thursday, March 1, 2007

To an animal lover, it seems obvious that the presence of an animal would encourage healing. We feel a sense of comfort and calm as we stroke the soft fur of a quiet cat or feel the gentle nudge of a dog's nose.

But can an animal be used as a form of treatment in traditional medicine?

Jennifer Baról, a graduate student in the New Mexico Highlands University School of Social Work, headed up a research project to study whether animal-assisted therapy is a valid treatment tool.

Between July 2006 and November 2006, Baról conducted a 15-week study titled "The Effects of Animal-Assisted Therapy on a Child with Autism". The study's purpose was to determine whether there is evidence that animal-assisted therapy helps increase social skills in children with autism.

The results were dramatic. Prior to working with Henry, an 8-year-old Australian cattle dog, 5-year-old Zachary struggled to communicate. He covered his eyes and his ears, he withdrew into corners and he threw tantrums when he couldn't get people to understand him. New activities stressed him out. He didn't know how to play with other people. He had never spoken a complete sentence.

After meeting Henry and building a bond with him, Zachary has transformed into a different child. He's more self-assured. He takes on new activities with curiosity. He is more aware of his surroundings and the needs of other people.

Most astonishing is how, halfway through the research project, Zachary spoke his first sentence.

It seems that for Zachary, animal-assisted therapy has opened up a new world."


When out of your depth on a subject, stop digging, you may have a daughter with Autism, but unfortunately that does not neccessarily qualify you to dictate what is or isn't applicable for the rest of the spectrum.

Don't bother responding, I'm bored with you now (unless you want to bore others with your wit), but hey just like I predicted at the beginning... there's always one.

I'm just amazed that a small minority of you go over to Canada for this better life, but choose to spend a large majority of your time on this forum picking fights, get out and enjoy life

Anyway this has nothing to do with the family that this thread was originally about, I really hope they get sorted soon. Yes they may not have researched their accomodation as well as perhaps everyone else would have liked them too, but hey, what's it to us, it's their life. Coming from the UK who would have thought it difficult to rent somewhere with a dog, maybe it's not a problem here in the UK, who knows. I'm pretty sure that they had other things on their minds and I'm sure that there were mistakes you've all made when moving over (and everyones entitled to them) or something that's gone slightly wrong, but I also expect you've worked through it.

Has anyone on here who actually lives in Cochrane (apart from the kind lady at the kennels) done the neighbourly/community thing and even checked or offered to help them at all with all your knowledge, instead of sitting here critisising their organisational skills???

Apologies for the essay, enough.

END

dbd33

I couldn't use the quote facility on your previous post as it wanders in and out of being a quote itself, that has to do with the placement of the tags. That's why I didn't approach it line by line. I suppose I'll have to do it by cutting and pasting the relevant bits.

"Clearly you have an issue with affluent people, this is something you must get over or it'll eat you up."

I don't know how that's a reasonable inference, my objection is to people, invariably affluent ones, using syndromes to explain their children's misdeeds. I have no particular beef with yacht owners or gymkhana entrants. I take it you consider yourself affluent, if so I suggest that supporting a disabled child in Canada will fix that.

'You clearly don't have that much experience of Aspergers as it doesn't have to be a BIG "disabling condition"'

It doesn't have to be a BIG disability to be a drain on the system. In your very next sentence you refer to getting help for your son, if you didn't pay for it, that's a drain.

"What I am saying is that not all Autism is a drain on the Health Service."

Perhaps not on the health service as it's generally thought untreatable. However autism and Asperger's are a drain on the education system and, in Ontario, on the taxpayer since there's a benefit, currently $1100/month payable to the parents of the disabled child by way of support.


" Maybe this website will explain how in a little more detail. http://www.northstardogs.com/autism.shtml"

The website is an advertisement soliciting donations in order that autistic children can learn empathy alongside dogs. It's not a scientific study. "Can't learn empathy" is, of course, the definition of autism.

"I would just say that perhaps had you have got the help and "label" in your daughters early years it may not have taken until she was 20 to calm down as you say."

Diagnosed at one year subject to every therapy kinown to mandkind since then. I don't think any more could have been done although doing nothing would have had the same result. The idea of early intervention being valuable is, I think, something of a myth. Doctors may be able to spot autism early but they don't know what to do with it.

dbd33

"How old are you"

51 and you?

"Nothing wrong with my tags, Check your post #25 where you have used the word "vegetable", so no words put in your mouth there. Think it's you that needs to check the capitalised intensifiers, since it was me using them to highlight your comments."

Granted I did use the term vegetable to represent one end of spectrum. My objection was primarily to your introduction of "BIG". Not all burdens on the state are BIG burdens on the state.

"....Can you not be bothered to read the previous links?"

Yes, I read the content. See above.

From your Irish guidedog quote:

"Having an assistance dog as a constant companion seems of benefit to autistic children.

As it is for any child, having a pet dog teaches the child about responsibility. When autistic children bond and interact with their assistance dogs, there appears to be an improvement in the child's behavior and socialization skills."

seems of benefit, appears to be - Where's the beef? All you have is the dog supplier saying dogs are good.

Have you a citation for the second piece? It's still horribly subjective but of some interest, the problem with success stories being of course that :

- the child may not have been autistic to begin with

- five isn't desperate late for a backward child to form sentences, demonstrating that the dog was the cause is a challenge.

I hope the people in the original story have found somewhere to live but my exposure to hundreds of autistic and aspie children with varying degrees of familiarity leads me to think the dog angle is a gimmick. People, whatever conditions they may have, cannot communicate through dogs.

dbd33

The study you cite doesn't support the idea of communicating through dogs. The key paragraph being:

"The fact that Zachary spoke his first complete sentence shows that there is some connecting between the presence of a dog and how motivated Zachary is to improve. The therapists agree Henry was not responsible for Zachary’s first sentence; that was all Zachary. But Zachary’s mom and therapist believe Henry has helped build a level of self-confidence in Zachary he didn’t have before."

http://www.dogwoodtherapy.com/docume...earchpaper.doc

Henry is the dog. Zachary is the child. One wonders if all autistic boys are called Zachary or Benjamin.

reilly

Well done bex1, This is the first time i've been on here & as i was reading about this, i was thinking exactly what you said. I am appauld by all their spitefullness. Not nice people to know I think.

Little D

I was very impressed by dbd33's response to someone, who maybe should get off of their high horse?!

I am not downplaying the fact that the child has autism, however, it seems all too common nowadays for people to 'use' such things to tug at heartstrings and get cheap publicity.

There are alot of things to think about when you move to another country, but I think the family would have found it difficult to rent anywhere in the UK even, with such a large dog.

I'm taking that whole article with a pinch of salt. It reads to me like they are trying to use their child's illness to get them out of a spot!

mandymoochops

Quite - love him or loathe him DBD talks straightforward common sense. (With a touch of wit, irony and sarchasm in the mix).

Politically correct mollycoddling helps no-one

ann m

I still don't see who has been spiteful Again, most of us were just querying the amount of homework the parents did, or did not do, before coming to this new land ....

Steve_P

There was short piece on this couple Monday morning on CBC radio they were talking to the Mrs.

I didn't catch enough of it to hear if there was anything new, just more of "Oh it sucks to be us we can't find a place to live".

Mikey B

Jesus christ we are agreeing way too often for my liking!!!!

At this rate Ill be inviting you over for a coffee and some timbits soon

mandymoochops

Had to re-read that as I thought you meant they were talking to Mrs Steve_P!!

I know what you mean though Steve - to re-iterate to all, no-one on here is glad they are in this situation, far from it and they must be having a tough time at the moment which I hope they can sort.

However I hope for their sake that they start to take some responsibility for their decisions in the future because with enough planning and hard work you can achieve anything. Maybe I'm being a tad insensitive to the whole issue but are they playing somewhat on their childs condition to get what they want because they didn't have the foresight to prepare?

swoopdutch

"With today’s housing market it can be difficult to find rental accommodations -- especially when you’re new to the country and have a 120-pound Dogue de Bordeaux"

1) Bad Planning!

2) Is a Yorkshire Terrier not as theraputic?

3) Hope the familiy's situation improves.

Biiiiink

Just twigged it's the Turner and Hooch dog... no wonder no-one wants to rent to them

dbd33

Coffee and bloody Timbits? Come over to my place, OH is in America, children are in Europe and South America, fridge contains Grolsch and Pride.

Serious point,

"Is a Yorkshire Terrier not as theraputic?"

I don't accept the idea that dogs are theraputic at all. IME autistic kids don't notice that they exist. However, when we went out to get a dog we chose one compatible with living with an autistic person, this means a calm disposition and some physical bulk, the dog gets sat on (the autistic person just doesn't notice it on the sofa), kicked (the AP just walks through it) and possibly bitten. Terriers are too temperamental and possibly too physically fragile.

Mikey B

[QUOTE=dbd33;6576672]Coffee and bloody Timbits? Come over to my place, OH is in America, children are in Europe and South America, fridge contains Grolsch and Pride.

Serious point,

Ahhh Grolsch - brings back happy memories!!!