While federal law protects a blind person’s right to be accompanied in public by a service animal, the rights of children with autism who rely on trained dogs to keep them safe, regulate unruly behavior and help them develop socially are not so clear.
Parents of children with autism are battling school boards on an equal-rights issue that promises to heat up ahead of this month’s provincial by-elections.
Do dogs belong in classrooms?
Families that have seen their easily agitated, sometimes non-verbal children blossom into calmer, more communicative kids around highly trained service animals think so. Supported by lawyers and equal-rights activists, they are fighting for the dogs to be viewed as assistive devices, no less essential than hearing aids in helping kids absorb curriculum.
But school boards have wildly inconsistent or nonexistent policies on the issue, forcing many parents to spend months — sometimes years — negotiating their way through the system as their child languishes academically.
National service dog agencies estimate nearly 1,500 children with autism have been paired with an animal. The Toronto Star spoke with families across Canada with the animals, several of whom described drawn-out, draining meetings where “standoff-ish” board officials debated the dog’s value and raised concerns about potential allergies, cultural sensitivities (can a child who is prohibited by religion from drawing an animal be in the same room as one?), strained resources (who would fill the dog’s water bowl?) and liability insurance.
“Parents of children with disabilities should not have to fight one school at a time, and one barrier at a time, to ensure that their kids can fully participate in and benefit from school,” said David Lepofsky of the non-profit Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance.
ARCH Disability Law Centre, a Toronto-based legal aid clinic that defends and advances equality rights for Ontarians with disabilities, is also lobbying for a fair, standardized policy on service dogs in schools.
But even children who have an education assistant are not guaranteed access.
Also alarming is a proviso that parents bear the full financial burden of hiring a dog handler to work with the child on school property.
Laurie Letheren, a lawyer with ARCH Disability Law Centre, said concerns about service dogs are often overblown because of a basic misunderstanding. “You’re not petting this dog,” she said.
Go to The Star to see the many stories of families trying to gain access to service dogs and what the outcome has been.