Express your voice

That dogs do help disabled people communicate/locomote better is well-documented. But the operative phrase here is ‘‘enable better’’, not cure. The Chennai effort is laudable but portraying it as a cure ends up playing with the lives of millions of children, just getting diagnosed all over the country.

As parents who have cared for children with autism, we feel such a headline is misleading, if not downright cruel, for the millions of caregivers who are working with autistic children and helping them learn better, and build better lives.

There is, to date, no known cure for autism. Autism is not a ‘disease’, it is a neurological disorder that seriously impairs social and communication faculties in children and adults. Such a disorder can be tackled through teaching methods aimed at enhancing communication skills.

What a headline like yours does is make a ‘fresh diagnosis’ parent feel that their child(ren) will get okay through ‘dog therapy’. Better yes, not ‘okay’ as in ‘cure’. Just to drive home that point, not just fresh parents but even ‘veterans’ like us have taken a few phone calls and e-mail messages about this new way out from well-meaning family and friends. It makes a mockery of the enormous physical and emotional effort that we have put in all these years.
Madhusudan Srinivas

‘‘Bait and switch’’ is a time-tested street scam virtually the world over. It is unfortunate that your correspondent has resorted to such a pathetic strategy. I write to you both as the parent of a child diagnosed as being born with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as well as a teacher.

As a teacher, a pedagogical tool I often rely on is to ask my students, ‘‘What is it that I want you to believe?’’. Upon asking myself this very question, I was alarmed at Radha Venkatesan’s report. One answer that offers itself: If you have a child diagnosed with dyslexia, autism or schizophrenia, go get yourself a Blue Cross-trained dog!

Perhaps your correspondent has little experience of the disabled life experience in our society or perhaps she is just plain and simple callous. A parent-driven NGO that I am a part of annually holds a training workshop for parents who have just received an ASD diagnosis for their child. Each year at this event, I get to see first hand the deperation and fears of such parents.

I put myself in their shoes while reading the report and can seen them desperately calling Chennai, trying to get hold of one such dog. The report begins with the claim ‘Dr Dogs’ are helping cure autistic and dyslexic childern in Chennai, and then nowhere else in the report does the word ‘cure’ appear!

I realise that media today is a high-stakes game, and feel-good stories on Page One are perhaps a necessity. Yet, may I request that your editors as well as your correspondents not seek glory on the shoulders of reportage that is at best sloppy and at worst uninformed and callous.
Professor Nalin Pant

While it may be true that interacting with friendly and well-trained dogs may have a positive effect on some children with autism, this does not affect the core deficits, and in the case of some children, may even make them averse to interaction because they are not comfortable with animals.

What is deeply disturbing to me as a parent and a member of an organisation that has worked with schools, parents, healthcare professionals and the government is that this article harks back to the bad old days of the ‘magic pill’ that was supposed to magically ‘fix’ the child. Dr Dog to the rescue and the child becomes ‘normal’! The point is, it is ‘normal’ for a person with autism or dyslexia to be the way he or she is. That IS the ‘normal’ state for that person. This could cause difficulties and these can be addressed using techniques based in developmental psychology. These are successful to varying degrees, but not one of them claims to be a ‘cure’.

Reporters, or at least their elders and betters should try to go beyond the anecdotal evidence that is presented.
Lekha Nair