The Future of Education

Some studies show the positive effects of the presence of an assistance dog to facilitate the school inclusion by kids with autism spectrum disorder (Prothman et al., 2009). The presence of the assistance dog at school would promote the social development by increasing opportunities for interaction between students (Redefer et al., 201989; Prothmann et al., 2009). Also, the assistance dog would have a positive impact on the child’s self-confidence and joint attention, which promote an openness to more cognitive learning (Cirulli et al., 2011). Specifically in a reading teaching situation, the presence of an assistance dog would increase student’s feelings of self-efficacy (Bassette and Taber-Douhty, 2013). However, we do not find in literature research showing the effects of the presence of the assistance dog on the actual learning of kids with autism spectrum disorder, the perceptions of their teachers about this effects and the effects of the dog on the learning skills of other students in the class. This is a case study carried out with four students using an assistance dog and their teachers. We conduct two focus groups and a questionnaire to reflect the research objective. The results show promising effects on the development of writing skills of both students users and other students. There do not appear to be any negative effects of the presence of the dog on students learning.