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Sloan's Story
Sloan is a bright 6 year old who loves to watch his favorite cartoons, play with his Thomas set, horse ride, participate in gymnastics, have swimming lessons and attend school. He is very active and longs to participate in social settings with other children however his sensory issues often leads to a high anxiety level which impacts on his ability to cope in these situations. Sloan was diagnosed as Autistic when he was 2 years old. He was very withdrawn and prone to many behavioral meltdowns which led to our family living a very isolated life with minimal opportunity to socialize.
“Autism presents even more unique challenges than other more prevalent disabilities. The child with Autism does not connect well with their environment. Autism manifests itself most strikingly as impairments in communication and in the formation of social relationships. Children with Autism are often nonverbal or when they are verbal they usually do not use the skill to actively communicate with other people in their environment. Many children with this disability have a strong need for a structured, routine environment; change creates feelings or fear and/or anxiety. Some children even exhibit serious behavioral changes including, at times, self-injury.”
Another behavior common to Autism is a tendency to wander away. Parents often refer to their children as “Houdini,” stating they are able to escape from even the most secured environment and the family usually has multiple locks on every door and window in the home. When this happens, the child may be in a life-threatening situation, especially if they are already out of the physical sight of their caregiver. Children with Autism often don’t respond to their names consistently, if they respond at all. They rarely understand the many dangers in their environment; an approaching car; a stranger with ill intentions; an aggressive dog separated from the child by nothing more than a gate, which is quite easily opened. Many parents report that their greatest fears center on their child being missing or when out with their child that they might look away only for a minute and turn to find their child gone or darting out into the path of an oncoming car.”
Over the past four years we have researched different interventions and taken a very eclectic approach to best suit our sons needs. We did this because we believed that any intervention that our son had to endure to learn new skills should be fun, gentle and nurture him, he had enough on his plate without being subjected to practices that were clinical and one size fits all.
Sloan has a very self limited diet due to his sensory issues which also excludes dairy, gluten, preservatives, colors and nuts due to allergies. Sloan has received Sensory Intervention and Greenspan therapy through the McKenzie Centre as well as teaching us how to use visual resources to help him communicate and comprehend. We have also been lucky enough to have an intervention program run in our home for 12 months. Sloan received Auditory Integrative Therapy to help with his sensitive hearing and is currently on a biomedical treatment program which looks at his environment, his diet and his vitamin and mineral deficiencies as well as his bowel issues.
With each of these interventions in place we have watched our son grow confident and learn new skills which we hadn’t dared to hope for. He now attends a mainstream school fulltime with a teacher aide for part of the day. His language has blossomed and he is a vibrant happy boy who loves to take part in most activities. He is well liked by everyone who meets him. The main issue our son continues to struggle with is his high anxiety level in social or new situations due to sensory overloads.
When we are on an outing it is not uncommon for him to become overwhelmed by the sensory dysfunction he lives with. By this I mean colors and lighting may seem so vibrant they become painful for him to assimilate, his hearing is so acute that even a quiet setting may sound like an underground train station in his head, when these overloads happen he has reacted by freezing, going pale, sweating or running blindly in fear to get away from the stimuli. We have learnt to prepare and plan for these occasions but the impact it has on his ability to access his community or social events are huge.
After researching Autism Assistance dogs and 4 Paws for Ability Inc., we knew this was the next logical step for our family. The dog that will become part of our family will be trained to meet our son’s specific needs. It will be street certified which will mean that we can take our dog with our son into our local community. He will be tethered or co-lead the dog which will mean that we can relax and enjoy our outing instead of being anxious that he will run blindly into traffic or any danger that may be around if he is frightened or overwhelmed suddenly.
The dog will be trained to nudge our son if he starts stimming in public (which I might add is his way of destressing but not socially appropriate to the majority of the community). This nudge will distract our son and redirect him to what we are doing. If our child becomes distressed and has a meltdown the dog is trained to lie across his lap and give him the deep pressure which is needed to reconnect him to his surroundings.
The dog will wear a 4 Paws For Ability bib to indicate it is certified which will indicate to the public that son is not ‘just a naughty boy”, but a child who has a different way of seeing the world and needs some considerations, not criticism.
As our son matures the dog will enable him to visit his friends and participate in events without having his mother hovering to intervene if he is anxious.
In a nutshell the opportunity to have an Autism Assistance dog placed with our family means increased independence and personal safety for our son, quality social interactions as well as equality when visiting his local community.
I hope that you can help us make this dream come true for our son. It is not a cure for Autism we are seeking; these dogs represent another important part of the puzzle to ensure he enjoys a quality life.
Sonya and Glen Ewens
4 Paws NZ 3
“Autism presents even more unique challenges than other more prevalent disabilities. The child with Autism does not connect well with their environment. Autism manifests itself most strikingly as impairments in communication and in the formation of social relationships. Children with Autism are often nonverbal or when they are verbal they usually do not use the skill to actively communicate with other people in their environment. Many children with this disability have a strong need for a structured, routine environment; change creates feelings or fear and/or anxiety. Some children even exhibit serious behavioral changes including, at times, self-injury.”
Another behavior common to Autism is a tendency to wander away. Parents often refer to their children as “Houdini,” stating they are able to escape from even the most secured environment and the family usually has multiple locks on every door and window in the home. When this happens, the child may be in a life-threatening situation, especially if they are already out of the physical sight of their caregiver. Children with Autism often don’t respond to their names consistently, if they respond at all. They rarely understand the many dangers in their environment; an approaching car; a stranger with ill intentions; an aggressive dog separated from the child by nothing more than a gate, which is quite easily opened. Many parents report that their greatest fears center on their child being missing or when out with their child that they might look away only for a minute and turn to find their child gone or darting out into the path of an oncoming car.”
Over the past four years we have researched different interventions and taken a very eclectic approach to best suit our sons needs. We did this because we believed that any intervention that our son had to endure to learn new skills should be fun, gentle and nurture him, he had enough on his plate without being subjected to practices that were clinical and one size fits all.
Sloan has a very self limited diet due to his sensory issues which also excludes dairy, gluten, preservatives, colors and nuts due to allergies. Sloan has received Sensory Intervention and Greenspan therapy through the McKenzie Centre as well as teaching us how to use visual resources to help him communicate and comprehend. We have also been lucky enough to have an intervention program run in our home for 12 months. Sloan received Auditory Integrative Therapy to help with his sensitive hearing and is currently on a biomedical treatment program which looks at his environment, his diet and his vitamin and mineral deficiencies as well as his bowel issues.
With each of these interventions in place we have watched our son grow confident and learn new skills which we hadn’t dared to hope for. He now attends a mainstream school fulltime with a teacher aide for part of the day. His language has blossomed and he is a vibrant happy boy who loves to take part in most activities. He is well liked by everyone who meets him. The main issue our son continues to struggle with is his high anxiety level in social or new situations due to sensory overloads.
When we are on an outing it is not uncommon for him to become overwhelmed by the sensory dysfunction he lives with. By this I mean colors and lighting may seem so vibrant they become painful for him to assimilate, his hearing is so acute that even a quiet setting may sound like an underground train station in his head, when these overloads happen he has reacted by freezing, going pale, sweating or running blindly in fear to get away from the stimuli. We have learnt to prepare and plan for these occasions but the impact it has on his ability to access his community or social events are huge.
After researching Autism Assistance dogs and 4 Paws for Ability Inc., we knew this was the next logical step for our family. The dog that will become part of our family will be trained to meet our son’s specific needs. It will be street certified which will mean that we can take our dog with our son into our local community. He will be tethered or co-lead the dog which will mean that we can relax and enjoy our outing instead of being anxious that he will run blindly into traffic or any danger that may be around if he is frightened or overwhelmed suddenly.
The dog will be trained to nudge our son if he starts stimming in public (which I might add is his way of destressing but not socially appropriate to the majority of the community). This nudge will distract our son and redirect him to what we are doing. If our child becomes distressed and has a meltdown the dog is trained to lie across his lap and give him the deep pressure which is needed to reconnect him to his surroundings.
The dog will wear a 4 Paws For Ability bib to indicate it is certified which will indicate to the public that son is not ‘just a naughty boy”, but a child who has a different way of seeing the world and needs some considerations, not criticism.
As our son matures the dog will enable him to visit his friends and participate in events without having his mother hovering to intervene if he is anxious.
In a nutshell the opportunity to have an Autism Assistance dog placed with our family means increased independence and personal safety for our son, quality social interactions as well as equality when visiting his local community.
I hope that you can help us make this dream come true for our son. It is not a cure for Autism we are seeking; these dogs represent another important part of the puzzle to ensure he enjoys a quality life.
Sonya and Glen Ewens
4 Paws NZ 3
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