USA : Wednesday, 8 December 2010 (Local Time)
While most people wouldn’t question the need for a blind person to use a service dog to get around, what about a child with autism? A Collier mom says her son needs his service dog to do well in school. But the district says dogs are not allowed.
At just six years old, JC Bowen has been having seizure for most of his life. He was diagnosed with autism at just two-years-od.
And he’s been his service dog Pepsi’s master since last year.
“He responds to seizures. He responds specifically to JC’s seizures,” said JC’s mother Elizabeth Lasanta.
Pepsi can sense when JC is having a seizure and lets the boy fall onto him instead of the ground.
Then the dog then lies on top of the kindergartner to calm him down.
“It wouldn’t be a problem if it was a wheelchair. They have a problem because it is a dog,” said Lasanta.
Lasanta is now in a legal battle with the Collier County School District asking a judge to allow Pepsi in class.
Lasanta testified Tuesday that last year, Pepsi was allowed in school to walk JC to class. But this year she was told the dog wasn’t allowed on the property.
“In a sense, what the school has said to me is- Well, we don’t need your tool. We have our own,” said Lasanta.
Collier County School District general counsel Jon Fishbane says expert testimony proves that there’s no need for Pepsi in school.
“There’s really nothing there for the dog to assist the child with the teachers and all of the staff can assist with his academic, emotional and other needs,” said Fishbane. ”If any person came in and said, ‘I like a dog,’ we’d have a classroom of 50 dogs.”
But Lasanta says taking her son’s dog away would be regressive.
“It’s not independence in the sense that I can let my child free into the world and he’s going to be safe, but he’s independent more than he was,” she said.
The judge’s decision is still more than two months away. But she says no matter what, she doesn’t plan on taking no for an answer.
“I’ll keep fighting. I’m going to keep fighting,” she said.
Story from : www.nbc-2.com (reported by Karla Ray)
Foto from : www.naplesnews.com (by Greg Kahn)
