What is the Secret Power of Therapy Animals in Education?

As a mother of a teen on the spectrum and educator, I always thought about ways school experiences can be a little more inclusive for these children. While in the USA autistic children have individualized educational plans to help them function in the educational system, these plans are not sufficient and are only a fraction of what these children truly need. Many autistic children face some serious issues. They often struggle academically because they tend to learn well only if they are interested in something. Therefore, they do not perform well in rigid curricula. They also struggle socially because their ways of making friends and interacting are a little bit different from the ways mainstream children engage.

After I observed my child’s growth as an autistic individual for almost 18 years and saw their amazing, caring personality, as well as many talents, it is hard to accept the definition of autism from the National Institute of Mental Health as a condition that is mostly seen as a deficit. For instance, in making friends, the National Institute of Mental Health states: “Difficulties sharing in imaginative play or in making friends.”

I would like to challenge this statement. Many autistic children are very social and actively seek to make friends. That’s how my child has always been. Kalina was actively and persistently looking for friendships by trying to engage other children in conversations in the ways Kalina knew, which are an integral part of their condition – initiating conversations by sharing interests. Therefore, saying that such children have difficulties in making friends implies that there is something wrong with the way they make friends.

The results of such a deficit perspective can be devastating for these children. My child was misunderstood, and they often came home defeated because they were unsuccessful with making friends. Making friends in their own, unconventional ways was seen as strange and annoying by other children. In addition, these dry definitions and listings leave an impression that these children need to be changed, intervened, and improved to fit the so-called norm.

When I think at a deeper level, I clearly see that it is not autistic children who are lacking. I think the problem is someplace else. The problem is that the definition of autism is formed from a perspective of a deficit and comparison to the mainstream, non-autistic children. Therefore, this definition is lacking itself because it is one-sided, lacks multiple perspectives, and is limited. In fact, this definition contributes to the way non-autistic populations see these children – through a limited lens.

How can we change school and classroom communities to help everybody see a child who engages in a conversation in different ways as not weird but resourceful and accessing the repertoire of their possibilities and creativity to make new friends, even if these ways of making new friends seem to be nonlinear and unconventional?

As an educator who also is involved in animal-assisted education, I conclude that including therapy animals in responsible, innovative, and creative ways might hold the answer to these issues. I have engaged in animal-assisted education for 6 years. About 4 years ago, together with an amazing teacher, we began to innovate in this area, which led to several quite profound discoveries I describe in my book on this innovation.

One of these discoveries is that if we engage in innovative and yet quite simple activities, we have the potential not only to improve children’s academic performance in every subject, including math, but we can also dramatically help special needs children because the inclusion of therapy animals in intentional ways allows us to build a new type of classroom communities. In this new type of classroom community, all children share something in common – a love for their therapy animal. This phenomenon can be the base for authentic implementation of activities on kindness and other important qualities that will help children include everybody in the community, no matter how different they are from the so-called norm.

One of our innovative activities including my therapy dog is about kindness. We asked the children to describe how Carmel shows that she’s a kind dog. All the children in the classroom, even the shy ones, had a lot to say about how Carmel shows kindness. After these responses, we asked children to apply what they have learned from the way Carmel shows kindness to the way they can show kindness to their peers, parents, and siblings. We were surprised by how much children learned from this quite simple application.

I think that we can take this activity even further and build on it. As dogs show kindness in ways that differ from people because dogs can, for instance, sniff someone or lick, we can learn from dogs’ ways and point out to children that showing kindness or friendship does not have to be manifested in the same way.

Just like dogs can show kindness and friendship in different ways than children, not all children will show kindness and friendship in the same way, and that’s perfectly fine and even wonderful because these different ways can enrich us.

That’s what we need to teach children.  For instance, while autistic children sometimes talk excessively about their interests, by teaching children that this is another way of making friends, we can truly contribute to creating inclusive communities in which everyone approaches others from the perspective of curiosity about how beautifully different we all are. That’s the big change we need in education and therapy animals can substantially contribute to this needed transformation.