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An Edmonton woman has filed a human rights complaint after her autistic nine-year-old daughter and service dog were told to leave the west-end Winners for the second time in three months.
"I don't believe that anybody should feel like a second-class citizen in any place ... and especially as a child," said Alison Ainsworth, Emily's mother.
The discount clothing store ordered Ainsworth's daughter, Emily, and her dog Levi to leave the premises last July, but later apologized to the family.
Originally posted by Evolutionsend
reply to post by hypr2011
What possible aid could a dog provide that a mother can't?
Winners parent company happens to be Marshall's in the US
National Service Dogs is committed to enriching the quality of life and enhancing the independence of children and families living with autism and special needs by providing them with specially trained Labrador and Golden Retrievers.
Service Dogs are trained to assist people who have a wide variety of mobility impairments and other hidden disabilities, such as seizures, psychiatric disorders, life threatening medical problems, or chronic pain. These dogs provide services to disabled individuals helping them function with greater self-sufficiency; prevent injuries; and summon help in a crisis.
Autism service dogs are trained to help the handler process sensory information. Many autism service dogs are trained in guide work/obstacle avoidance (the same thing a guide dog does) to help the handler with visual stimuli.
As with hearing assistance dogs for the deaf, the dogs may also be trained to alert their handler to important noises or other things requiring human intervention, such as smoke or a smoke alarm, a crying baby, a telephone ringing, a knock at the door. For a person with autism, it isn't quickly obvious which of the many external stimuli is the urgent one requiring their immediate attention. A person with autism must sort through both major and minor stimuli—the sound of crickets, the smell of the fabric softener on their clothes, a car driving past outside—in order to determine which of these, if any, needs their attention. They may understand that a smoke alarm is urgent and requires them to exit the building, but their autism may cause them to take longer going about it