[nagdu] Missing Washington Co. Boy Found After 5-MileBarefootWalk

[Pickrell, Rebecca M (TASC)]

Wow, fascinating!

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Katrin Andberg
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 9:16 PM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nagdu] Missing Washington Co. Boy Found After
5-MileBarefootWalk

There are many tasks that service dogs can do for adults with autism
that
are real true tasks.  Many relate to disorders that tend to coexist with
the
autism diagnosis.  For example I am autistic and also have a
neurological
sensory processing disorder with poor proprioception.  The sensory
processing disorder I have because I am autistic and that is what I
mainly
utilize my dog for.  Because of this disorder I have difficulty with
correctly processing my environment through my senses.  Personally my
most 2
affected senses are my eye sight and my hearing.  I use my tactile sense
a
lot to correctly interpret what my eyes are seeing or to tell me how far
away from something I am and things like that.  Pretty much I can never
trust my eye sight.  I am not legally blind but I do utilize many of the
same skill sets that people who are legally blind use.  I have been
through
O&M training, which of course the state would not fund even though my
drs
recommended it, so I had to pay out of pocket and it was a HUGE help to
me.
I have also learned a lot by trial and error how to get along best in my
environment.  One of the reasons I am on guide dog user specific e-mail
lists is because it is a simple way for me to learn new things from
others
who have problems with vision even though the reasons we have problems
are
not the same and see how they get things accomplished.  There are things
I
have read about on the list and then gone "Hey that would really be a
good
thing for me to try!" and I do it and it is a great help to me and makes
things a lot easier.  I am a very independent person and I tend to learn
things a bit differently because of my disability but I still get the
job
done.  I do not though have the benefit of a vision center or a state
commission for the blind or someplace like that as those places won't
assist
me.  There is a local autism society but most of their services for
people
my age are for things like social groups or employment which I don't
really
need that kind of help with at this time.

 

For what my dog does for me, he does all of the same tasks that a guide
dog
for any of you do.  He does obstacle avoidance, he does intelligent
disobedience at streets and other dangerous situations, he does stopping
at
curbs and stairs and other changes in pavement.  He also has a follow
cue
which I use quite often when we are in new places.  I have also trained
him
to find our home, the last car we were in if someone takes us out, how
to
find people I go places often with by name, how to find places I go
often by
name and a number of other things for me.  He finds entrance and exit
doors,
he finds counters, he finds empty seats, etc.  I also have a dog who
helps
me at home only (I could have trained James but my corgi really wanted a
job
so it was fun to train him too) who alerts me to various timers going
off
and the smoke and CO alarm.  Again because of my sensory processing
disorder
I have difficulty with actually processing what those sounds are or
simply
not tuning them out and hearing them at all, so he tells me when they
are
going off same as a hearing dog for the deaf would do.

 

The dog I currently have, James, I owner trained.  My next dog I had
been
hoping to owner train, but due to life circumstances I am not going to
be
able to so I have recently been accepted to GDF and will be going there
at
some point in hopefully the next 2 years.  Finding a program that would
accept me and train the tasks I need (which is mostly guide work)  was
very
difficult as pretty much no service dog programs train guide skills and
very
few guide dog programs will accept people who are not legally blind.
GDF
was the only school I was able to find that was willing to accept me to
date
on the east coast.  They have been great to work with and hopefully will
be
a good match for me.

 

Katrin

 

Katrin Andberg

Katrin at maplewooddog.com 

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