At the end of March my wife and I went to Portland Oregon to get an autism service dog from Autism Service Dogs of America for our son. After being on the waiting list for two years, we were able to bring Pearl home and already we have seen some changes although many are in unexpected ways.
We got the service dog to help anticipate and prevent his outbursts, and running away. Those things actually have reduced pretty drastically in the two years we have been waiting for a dog, so we wondered what else we would see when we added a dog to our lives.
Andrew is more social, tends to stick with his class more, and has been leaving the classroom for sensory breaks less often. That's pretty good progress for a couple of weeks! He also has a buddy now who he totally loves!