The Journal News, based in White Plains, N.Y., recently ran a nice article about a therapy dog that has apparently prompted wonderful results in a classroom of children with special learning needs. One 6-year-old with selective mutism -- a social anxiety disorder that prevented him from speaking -- apparently broke his silence just so he could talk to his mother about Boo, a 7-year-old Labrador mix.
Therapy dogs have had a long history in schools, but they are not universally accepted, for a variety of reasons. A few years ago, I wrote about a family that wanted their specially-trained therapy dog to be a part of their daughter's individualized education program, because giving the dog commands helped the child improve her speech. The school said no. The always-interesting National School Boards Association blog, "Board Buzz," wrote a piece in 2004 about a superintendent who got hounded (forgive me) for not allowing a dog that was specially trained to note the onset of seizures attend school with a student who has epilepsy.
So I'm glad to bring attention to a happy ending. There's only one thing missing from the Journal News article though -- words from the child in question! If the therapy dog has been so successful in getting this young child to speak, I'd love to know just what he's talking about.
Hey, Ms. Samuels, thanks for alerting me to this story. These heart-warming personal interest pieces pop up from time to time, as you show. I ran an entry about one just last month.
My cold, skeptical heart often sinks a few centimeters when I see stories like this, though. I'm not opposed to having pets; I have some myself (and I sometimes even talk to them). Nor am I opposed to having animals in classrooms; there have been many different ones in classes where I've taught.
I am concerned about what we make of these stories. I fear that such accounts reinforce the perception that some magic or mystical feature of education trumps the dogged (forgive me) work required to help students with disabilities succeed. I also am concerned about inferring a causal relationship between the presence of animals and changes in students' behavior.
For those reasons, among others, I found your interest in hearing what the child had to say to be especially relevant. Wondering about the benefits of animal-assisted therapy, I just ran a search of the APA Psych Info data base. I found 8 entries total, and there were (a) 0 (zero) entries when I limited the search to quantitative studies and (b) 0 when I limited it to literature reviews or meta-analyses.
Sigh. It looks like another example of the cosmetic-cardiac approach to education.