The shock of my life!

[skittles-1994]

A bit of back story - My younger brother is 12 years old and non-verbal Autistic, and the words he can say usually need to be prompted for him to say - for example if you ask if he wants to watch one movie or another he will respond, or if he wants popcorn or pasta he will say which he would like.

Well the other day my mother brought my brother over for a visit, and for a bit of a joke as my mum is dead scared of my carpet python, I pulled him out and popped him on my shoulders.
My brother, who has never approached an animal of his own accord, walked straight up to me and said clear as day 'Snake!' And gently petted him! (I don't know which was more shocking, him touching it or him touching it gently!?!?)

Just needed to share my strange and wonderful experience!

 

[longqi]

We often take snakes to schools
Love going to the special needs classes
Those kids invariably seem to 'understand'/'unite' with the snakes immediately
Teachers cannot understand it
Kids that were screaming demons five minutes before seem to bond with snakes very quickly
They are so gentle and careful

We always stay longer than we were supposed to

 

[skittles-1994]

That's absolutely wonderful! I've heard plenty of bonding with dogs and the occasional cat but snakes, I honestly never pictured it!

 

[pythonmum]

Great stuff! I have showed snakes to many children, but never had the opportunity to do so with a special needs cohort. I also take my dogs to nursing homes and hospitals for pet therapy. Old folks who can't string together a sentence normally will manage to sing or talk to the dog. Animals don't judge and respond to body language, so they understand challenged people much better than the rest of us do.

 

[cement]

I have also caught a snake (python) out of a special needs section of a local high school, and the kids were all kept away while i bagged it, it struck me that the only people keen to talk to me about it after, was the special needs kids and the female teachers.
The normal kids kept their distance with the male teachers.

 

[Diamond_newbie]

I teach at a special needs school. My students have intellectual disabilities, many are on the Autism Spectrum. It always amazes me the response they have to animals. Last term I took them to a wild life park and they had the best day! They got to hold pythons, lizards, baby sugar gliders and feed the Tasmanian Devils. Best day.

 

[ronhalling]

It is a pretty common thing for special needs kids to bond with pets of every description, as an example when my son was younger (about 5) he was diagnosed with the big 3 ADHD, Asbergers and ODD, at the time i was pretty big into collecting and breeding Bird Eating Spiders of several types, when my son got into 1 of his "Grey Outs" as we called it or full emotional and mental gridlock the only way to get through to him or settle him to a point where he was manageable was to sit him on a chair amongst the Arachnids, it had a magical calming effect on him that no drug could do, and as the years have gone by whenever he gets into that zone where everything seems to be getting on top of him he can always be found holding, petting and talking to 1 of the snakes, he is 20 now and readily admits that for some reason the snakes seem to calm him down like nothing else can. This is just our personal experience but pets as therapy has been used for many years so there must be something in it. .............................Ron

 

[skittles-1994]

Interesting stuff guys!
That's so great to hear Ron! How out of the box is that! Hopefully one day I can see if my little guy has any calming effect, I know exactly what you mean about those gridlocks, it's so hard trying to find a fix. I'm glad your boy found his! And in something so healthy as animal companionship

 

[ronhalling]

Yep!!!! hard is something of an understatement, when my young bloke had an information overload he used to do what is called "Stimming" probably the best way to describe Stimming is they go blank and wring their hands and turn their heads from side to side almost as if denying everything around him, we were lucky in as far as his Stimming went, some kids with ASD (Autism Spectum Disorder) vocalize their Stimming and it can be a horrendous thing for the uninitiated to hear, but in about 60-90% of cases therapy animals of all types usually have a very positive effect in calming them and bringing them back to centre. As i said my son is now 20 and has mostly grown out of the big problems, but we know straight away when things are building up inside him coz he can be found out on the front lawn petting and talking to our big Coastal girl....go figure. ............................Ron