According to of Carleton University's Cosmin Coltea (a developmental psychologist and dog trainer) simply having a pet dog could be therapeutic for children with disorders on the autism spectrum.

Pet dogs, on the other hand, may provide a similar level of emotional and behavioral therapy at a much lower cost.

Coltea told the Ottawa Metro that he had studied 20 families of children with autism -- and he found that families with dogs were more likely to have children with lower stress and fewer behavioral limitations.

In previous research, he reported that nearly half of the studied children with ASDs were strongly attached to their dogs.

Coltea himself has a 10-year-old son, Ryan, who has Asperger's Syndrome, a disorder that experts estimate is shared by 1 in 5,000 American children.
 

Labels: autism

Posted By: 4ADHD.com