AJ Cullen Langell: Unleashing Compassion – The Synergy of Canine Companions and Autism Support

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The Connection is you? Welcome to Why Not Me the World?
Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor, Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee.
Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some
will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real
life people who will inspire and show that you are
not alone in this world. Hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance,
and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi,
I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World.
Today's guest has such an amazing story. She has an
autistic family member and works with dogs. Literally, she works
with dogs. Aj Cullen Langell joins me today she's going
to tell us her fascinating story about how she created
autism Barks.
Thanks for coming on, so excited for the opportunity.
Oh, it's my pleasure. So how did you get involved
with this? It's really interesting.
I have a family member who's on the autism spectrum,
so that is where my passion for supporting the autistic
community comes from. And I grew up with dogs and
have always been surrounded by dogs and have just found
their presence to be really powerful and very healing. And
shortly after college I began working as a special education
teacher and was able to bring my late dog Ella
into my special education classroom and in watching her interact
with the students and transform the dynamic of our classroom. Okay,
it just really demonstrated kind of the power of animals.
Interventions within autism, so I wanted to kind of put
those passions together.
Okay, so how long was you involved with the special
heads on the teaching side.
I was in that role for about two years. It
was at a school for children with emotional.
And behavioral challenges, so they had been out place from
their public school and had a variety of different diagnoses,
including autism. So I was there for a few years
and then transitioned into working as the director of social
services at a skilled nursing facility where I also brought
my late dog Ella, and she worked alongside me in
a geriatric care setting.
Okay, so each time that you brought your dog in,
what was that reaction you said you saw something special?
What was that something special?
My favorite story to tell, and I'm going to have
to come up with the new ones. People are going
to be like, hey, Jay, We've heard this story like
times now.
Okay.
My favorite story.
Is when I would bring her into my special education classroom.
I had a student that really struggled with kind of
communicating his emotions and his feelings, and on a whim
one afternoon, I suggested that he send an email to
the dog because the dog had the day off and
was at all okay. It ended up being one of
his largest kind of coping strategies that he used for
the remainder of the school year. Whenever he felt upset,
he would reach out and email the dog and then
I would reply in the evening as the dog. And
as the year progressed, he actually got more comfortable and
began verbally talking to Ella when she was in the
classroom and then eventually, by the end of the year,
to me without the dog there.
Wow.
So watching that transformation and also just the joy that
she was able to help bring to the class. You know,
a lot of these kids had really traumatic experiences, had
difficult living situations, So to be able to create an
environment that was fun and you know, calming for them
by having her presence there was just so wonderful to witness.
Oh that sounds really really good.
So this other job that you had, did this work
in your favor so that it created your desire to
create autism Barks.
So yes, and no, Tony, I've always worked multiple jobs.
Autism Barks actually just came about not even a year ago.
July twenty twenty three was our official kind of launch,
so to speak.
Okay.
I had an.
Opportunity last April, so almost a year ago, which is
where I met Lynn to speak at I Can Do
Buy Awesome and was able to share the power of
animal assisted interventions and how they're impacting autism community. From
that and from the connections that I made and the
conversations that I had, I decided that I really wanted
to kind of formalize what was a passion project of
mine that I had been doing on the side for
a long time. And that was what prompted me to
formalize Autism Barks and pursue getting a certification as an
animal assisted intervention specialist, launched my website and put together
some resources and education that I could begin to share
with others to hopefully make animal assisted intervention more accessible
to the autistic community.
That's cool.
Now, do you raise dogs that transition or do they
have dogs that you help train?
How does that process go?
Yeah, that's a great question. I wish that I had
the dogs myself. My husband he would disagree. He's happy
with just our one dog, but I would love to
have the dogs myself.
But I don't.
So what we do with.
Autism barks is a lot of education, so public speaking
engagements to different autism conferences, school districts, care facilities on
what animal assisted intervention entails and how you can create
and implement a program within a specific setting. I also
offer one to one consultations with families and individuals because
within the context of animal assisted intervention, there are actually
varying types of dogs, and it's a very common misconception.
Service dogs, therapy dogs, emotional support animals. They're all very
different and they all do very different things. So one
of the things that I can do is work with
families and individuals to break those differences down and to
learn more about their loved one or themselves and help
them make an informed decision as to which type of
dog is right for that.
Okay, that's really cool, So tell me what breed of
dog is on top of the list for your program.
That's another great question, and it's actually.
In service dog work, the easy answer is a Labrador
Retriever or a Golden Retriever. However, in therapy work there
are not as many stringent kind of tasks and responsibilities
placed on the dog. Okay, so we're finding that a
variety of breeds of dogs are very effective working as
therapy animals. My late dog who I described earlier, Ella,
she was actually a poodle in a your key mix.
She was like a ten pound ball of fluff.
Okay.
The classroom that I worked in that I described to you,
I had a classroom of like eight to twelve year
old boys from the inner city. So I never thought
they were going to take to this like fluff ball
of a dog named Cinderella. But it just goes to
show that that human animal bond can transcend some of
those stereotypes that we might think of when we think
of a specific.
Breed or you know, kind of perfect dog for the work.
Sure, So you just mentioned three different types of dogs
therapy and what was next on.
The list service and emotional support animals.
Okay, so if you would tell us the difference, can
you explain that then tell us how that would apply
to the autistic community.
So with service dogs, service dogs are kind of the
most common thing that people think of when they hear
any of the terms A service dog is going to
be that yellow lab or that Golden Retriever that's wearing
a red vest that you're seeing out and about. You know, Traditionally,
people I feel like always make the association that they're
helping people in wheelchairs, which we know is not the case.
They help a variety of different people, but service dogs.
The big thing with service dogs is that they are
specifically task trained or the individual that they're going to
be part with. The tasks that they're trained in are
specific to that individual, and they're specific to mitigating the
symptoms or challenges of one's diagnosis or disability. Within autism,
we see so often that social interaction can be a challenge,
and they're finding that the service dogs can assist with
things like boundary control. What that is is just the
dog keeping a certain parameter between their individual that they're
partnered with and you know, the general public. If that
allows the person to be a bit more comfortable in
a crowded or a social setting, having that buffer of
the dog making sure someone's not getting too close to them.
It can also help ease the nerves that come along
with social interaction. Having that dog there, it's much easier
to approach someone if they're walking a dog. Then you know,
just walking up to someone and saying, Hi, my name's
AJ and nice to meet you, right right, So those
sorts of things, they're also finding folks that have autism
and co occurring maybe trauma or self stimulatory behaviors. The
dogs can be trained to intervene in those situations, so
they can apply deep pressure to the person to help
them calm down from any anxiety, night terrors, things of
that nature. And they can be trained to interrupt some
of those stereotypical behaviors if needed, if that's appropriate for
the person. So we're really seeing a lot of work
being done with service dogs being able to impact the
autistic community as a whole.
I would have never thought of a service dog, like
you said, because I'm watching a series right now called
Sue Thomas. It's really great because it's about a service dog.
Have you seen that?
Yes? Yeah, where she's got LEVI Yes, seeing I dog yeah, right,
because she's death so the dog lets her know if
anybody's coming around her. This talking to her, right, So
that's kind of what you think of a service dog exactly.
I would have never thought of a service dog creating
that barrier for that autistic person, right.
I think that's really cool.
Yeah.
And one of my favorite examples that one of the
service dog agencies gave me when was interacting with them, is.
They also shared a story about how one of the
dogs they trained to on command, act as if it
needed to use the restroom, so that if the individual
was over stimulated in the workplace or in a social setting,
instead of them having to excuse themselves or draw attention
to themselves, they could very casually say, oh, I have
to take the dog out.
Wow. Okay, Now do you actually get into training the
dogs as well?
I do not train the dogs, but I do have
a repertoire of organizations and resources of agencies that I'm
familiar with or have connections with that I'm able to
direct people to.
Okay, Now, autistic people, as we I know, sometimes can
have a major meltdown. So do you have a good
scenario and a worst case scenario for a dog in
that situation, because, as you know, sometimes they can have
a situation of where they lose complete control and unfortunately
could hurt the dog. Yes, but on the other hand,
hopefully the dog could help calm that person and make
that situation a little more tolerable.
Yes. Absolutely.
And one of the things that as much as I
would like to see everyone have a dog, because I
am still passionate about dogs and just love them so much.
I got mine righting next to me. They are not
a one size fits all solution. So one of the
things that I always try to include in any conversation
that I'm having when it comes to including dogs into
services and supports for the artistic community is that we
really have to look at what the individual needs and
what's going to be safe for them and for the dog,
because service dog agencies do have a very stringent screening
process where they're looking at not only the safety of
the individual, but the safety of the dog as well.
So in certain instances it may not be the appropriate
intervention or solution for someone right. On the other hand,
we are finding really great anecdotes from families and individuals
that have service dogs that the dogs are being trained
to provide that emotional support and comfort in those times
of major meltdowns, so being able to go and lay
over someone's lap and provide deep pressure, or some of
the dogs can be trained to nudge the individual to
try to bring them back into the present moment, things
of that nature. So it can certainly work in both ways,
but it's very important to trust that service dog agency
and their ability to make a decision as to if
a dog is right for sure.
Now, as in anything, when you get into a specialty thing,
it can get very expensive. Is this one of those
situations where it can be really expensive or isn't it
reasonable for the person that's looking for that end result? Well?
I think reasonable means different things to different people. Sure,
the easy answer I would say is it's expensive. However,
the majority of service dog agencies are having their client
access a dog as a result of fundraising.
So some of the.
Agencies, you know, they may have a eighty five hundred
dollars fundraising minimum, others might have a twenty thousand dollars
fundraising minimum. To train a service dog, it costs about
fifty thousand dollars.
Wow.
So that's the agency's cost because it's the cost of
the dog, it's the cost of caring for the dog
for two to three years, and the training that goes
into a service dog is just astronomical.
That was my next question.
How long does it take to train these dogs to
get them ready to go in with this person that's
in dire need of them.
About eighteen to twenty four months.
Wow.
Yeah, so that's kind of the service dog piece.
But then when you think of therapy animals, which therapy animals,
they do require some specific training, but it's nowhere near
as intensive as a service dog, and they're more often
placed with a handler like myself. So I'm a social
worker and I have my current dog, Lola, who's sleeping
on the bed right here.
She is.
I call her a therapy assistant.
She doesn't love therapy work as much as I had hoped,
but that's okay.
Not all dogs do. But in therapy work, you have
a volunteer.
Handler and their animal, which can be a dog, and
it can be in the US eight other species of animals, cats, birds,
miniature horses, runs the gamut, but at Marks we just
do dogs. In those instances, there's not a cost associated
with the family because the family's able to access those
therapeutic interactions, whether it be in a school setting, a
public library, different community events. So there are ways for
the autistic community to connect with animal assisted that even
without having to bring an animal into the home, because
anyone that the pet owner knows, taking an animal into
the home is a lot of bark and responsibility. So
it's not necessarily going to be either right fit for everyone,
but some individuals might really enjoy having that connection with
an animal on an outside basis, If that makes sense.
Sure, Now, have you had any instances where you went in,
you looked at a family, you thought that it would
work out, and then you place that dog and it
appeared like it was but then for whatever reason, it
turned into the lack of a better word, a disaster
and it just didn't work out. Have you had any
situations like that.
I have not had those situations arise as of yet,
but I'm new and I do anticipate that that is
something that can happen because circumstances change. And I have
my family member who's on the autism spectrum, and when
I was younger, he loved our pet dogs and enjoyed
being around them.
And now he has a really strong aversion to dogs.
And there was no specific trigger event, anything that happened.
It's just something you know, as he got older, he
just has a strong aversion to dogs. So there are
situations where maybe you know a dog or a family
pet is effective and fits into the family miliu when
the child is younger, but as they get older there
could be a change in going through puberty and adolescence
and maybe it's no longer an appropriate fit. So one
of the things that is really important in therapy animal work,
in addition to service animal work, is doing some screening
and really looking at what does the home look like,
what has the child been exposed to in the past,
and having contingency plans in place, making sure that you
have a retreat space for the animal, you have something
planned in case something does go wrong.
Okay, so let's flip this around. Have you gone into
a situation where you didn't think it was going to
work and then all of a sudden the magic popped
out and it turned into the best case scenario you
could hope for.
Not in working with families thus far, but that's the
exact kind of best case scenario. Example of my special
education classroom that I started talking about. I mean, these
children had to be restrained on a regular basis, you
know where throwing furniture where I was established scissors one time.
So it was a challenging situation.
And to say I really didn't think that a ten
pound dog named Cinderella was going to have an impact
on the classroom would be an understatement.
And that was something I really had to think.
Long and hard about about, even bringing her into the setting,
because I had to make sure that I was considering
her safety as well. Sure, so we did, you know,
a lot of planning with the students, and they had
to have X amount of days of no violent behavior,
and I had my dad in the area so that
if I needed to call him to come pick her up,
you know, doing all of those things to make sure
that safety for all involved was taken care of. But
I mean, I also had one student that he struggled
with socialization and just.
Kind of talking with people.
And one of the things that we did with him
and with Ella is they made a talk show together.
So one day a week, we would go into the
hallway and we had like a whole little talk show
set up with my iPad, and he would sit there
and he would interview the dog, and then we'd find
different teachers and people to be on the talk show
with him. That really helped him practice communicating verbally, communicating
with other people, asking questions, that back and forth communication.
So just so many ways that I never expected her
to impact or have those profound kind of changes and
joy brought to the students that we were working with.
So that's definitely kind of like the best case scenario
example that I can think of.
Yeah, okay, so tell me, and you may not know this,
how many other organizations in the country or around the
world are like you and do what you do?
So like what I do.
I don't think there's a ton because a lot of
the organizations that are out there are service dog agencies
that are doing the direct training and the placement of
the service dogs. A lot of the therapy organization, you know,
they're much larger organizations.
I'm all one woman show.
A lot of these therapy organizations have a countless amount
of volunteers and therapy teams. But I really strive to
be the one that's providing the education. So what is
kind of the science behind it?
Why does it work?
Why do we want to push the field forward and
push for more evidence based research to support this. Now
that we have this evidence and we know that it works,
how can we make this more widely accessible? Because that's
another thing too, is that you know, you think of
a service dog, not everyone's going to have access to that.
Not everyone has the capacity to raise dollars, never mind
twenty thousand. So how can we equitably get that human
animal bond out there? Within the autistic community, regardless of
you know, someone's kind of situation.
Okay, so you just mentioned research and science. Anytime you
those two words together, you have to add a third
word in there, and it's usually government. So have you
seen where this research has helped and you can get
the government involved with subsidies or get them to acknowledge
that what you're doing is going to ultimately help the
autistic community.
So I can't speak to what's really happening locally. The
majority of my research kind of focus is what's more
happening nationally, and there are a few different colleges and
universities that are really kind of driving the bus. The
University of Denver has a really strong human animal bond program,
does as University of Arizona. And then I just started
this past semester. I'm an adjunct faculty at Carroll University,
which is a small school in Wisconsin, and they too
have an animal behavior major for their on graduate student,
so I teach a course in the human animal bond.
And animal assistant interventions for them. So we are seeing
tony that a lot more research is being done and we're.
Finding that there are more therapy animal organizations and service
doc organizations partnering in this therapy are in this research.
I'm sorry. I'm hoping that with that, the more evidence
based research we have, then we will start to see
some of that governmental buy in.
Okay, so this is fairly and relatively new then, yeah,
So being that it's new, where do you see this progressing?
Let's say in the next five years.
What I'm really hoping is accessibility and awareness to grow.
I think in order for those two things to happen,
we need to have more research come out. Because one
of the things that I'm finding in doing my education
and you know, preparing for different conferences and such, is
when you read research studies and you're reviewing the limitation section,
nine times out of ten is going to say.
The lack of research.
When you're approaching a school administrator or a hospital administrator
and they're uncertain about I'm sorry, you want to bring
a dog into the hospital? Like, there are so many
issues and concerns with that. You know, having anecdotally based
research is great, and I would love to tell the
story of my special education classroom until I'm blue in
the face, but I really need hard and fast scientific
data if I'm going to get someone to change their mind.
Like hearing a story about my student that wrote emails
to a dog. It's heartwarming, but it's not necessarily going
to from a liability standpoint, make anyone kind of say, oh, okay, yeah,
this is a great idea. So I'm hoping that within
the next five years, the more and more research that's
coming out help us be able to with the field
and bring down those barriers so that it does become
more accessible to folks.
Yeah, I agree.
One of the big issues that I see is that
you have autism that is so misunderstood around the country
and of course around the world. So when you have
this issue where everybody looks at it and does not
understand it, and then you're trying to help those and
these people don't understand it, it seems like it can be
overwhelming at times. So how do you go about discussing
this with people when they don't understand it and you're
trying to get them to understand only autism, but dog
therapy and how it helps people they just don't understand.
Yeah, it's very challenging.
I feel like the good thing about being a social
worker is I'm able to compartmentalize pretty well. But I
had an instance where I was speaking with an agency
advocating for including autistic adults, particularly boarding them with therapy
animal service animals, and they shared with me that they
didn't feel that autistic adults had the appropriate care abilities
to be able to care for a dog.
Right.
So, as a family member of an autistic adult and
someone that's worked in the field of autism for eighteen
years now, you could imagine how well received that comment was.
But in that instance really kind of tapping into my
social work roots and being an advocate and advocating not
only for the capability of the autism community, but of
the power of AAI in. One of the things that
I've found in my own work is that whoever's involved,
you want them to be passionate about it. I've found
in the instance, like I just described, is I will
tap into those social work roots, I will advocate, I
will educate in a respectful and professional manner.
But if that partner isn't going to be on board
and thinks it's a good idea, then personally, and I
go back to kind of like my family member hat,
I wouldn't want that person working with my loved one
if they weren't fully on board.
So it's saying, Okay, I've worked on this connection, i
haven't been able to dive, but let me pursue these
three other connections, or let me reach out to this
organization that I have had a lot of success with
in being able to tap into those relationships and make
sure that we're connecting the autistic individuals that we're supporting
with organizations that are going to embrace and support them
and let them be who it is.
That they want to be.
Yeah, that's what I see as well, because I talk
with many people on my podcast and others just in
casual conversation, and the biggest thing that comes up is
that the majority of people just do not understand what
autism is, right, and because of that, they have a
closed mind on what needs to be done because of
their misunderstanding and perception of what autism is. Yes, So
that's the issue that you have to deal with in
that you have to first train these people that have
their percession of what autism is so they understand, and
then you get into training them about the dogs right.
And it's you know, it's funny, Tony, because even within
my own family. My husband probably chastised me for telling
the story, but there was an instance where I was
talking to him about a client and my family member
also has an intellectual disability, so he presents and functions
in one way, and the client that I was describing
does not have an intellectual disability.
And I was saying, oh, yeah, you know my client,
da da da dadai.
He was at Toyota today getting his car serviced and
doing something.
And my husband was like, he has autism and he
can drive.
Yeah, And I was like.
Yes, yes, Like I'm a little alarm that you're asking
me that, but I'm glad that you're asking and this
is like a good opportunity for me to remind you
that autism is a spectrum. So yes, you see my
family member who functions in a specific way and who
I'm always referring to because he's the light of my
life and catalyst of my career.
But it's a spectrum.
So you think of it, and it's like, well, even
if you have someone that close to you and your
professional in the field and they still have those misconceptions,
of course, the general public is going to have even
that many more.
Oh that's so true.
I spoke with one gentleman that does public speaking, and
he told me that he had some people coming up
and telling him they didn't realize that autistic people could
have kids.
Yeah, it's or be married.
Yeah.
It's really a tough situation that people put you into
because now you're in a situation of your having to
train them about autism and what it is and how
autistic people can get out there and do everything just
like you and me. And then it seems like at
times with you training them about how dogs can help them,
it seems like it might be just a little overwhelming
at times.
It can be overwhelming at times.
But I feel very blessed that I have my family
member on the spectrum and my love of dogs, because
it doesn't.
Feel like work to me.
So I think we all have those passion projects are
those things that really ignite that fire inside of us
that we could fight for and advocate for and enjoy doing.
And I'm fortunate that for me, I've found a way
to put these two passions together. So it's definitely challenging,
and I mean this morning, I was on my computer
because I have a full time job too, that's outside
of all of this, right I do my work for
Autism Barks usually from like six in the morning until
nine in the morning, and then I go to my
full time job wow and come back and you know,
do stuff on evenings and weekends as well.
So it can be challenging, but it's so rewarding. And
when I'm able.
To even make a small inroad or give someone hope
right right.
That to me is just so worth it.
In gear in the United States and in other countries,
the waitless for more traditionally based therapies is really extensive.
It's really long.
And going down to the local library to visit with
the visiting therapy dog, there's not a waitless for that,
and that might get that person out of the house.
It might only be once a month, but they're getting
out of the house.
That to me is a success.
Do you ever see this becoming you a full time
thing with us all you do is just autism barks.
That would be my dream.
So what's it going to take to get you there? Here?
You are doing it part time, well part time full time, yeah,
So what will it take to get you over that
hump where you're seeing this is working, You're seeing you're
helping people and this is what.
You do well.
I'm hoping to pursue a doctorate degree, so I would
like to complete my PhD and be able to through
that process do some research, help move the field forward,
and make the necessary connections to really kind of help
this take off right now.
As I said, I'm a one woman show.
So all of the work that I've done thus far
for Autism Barks has been on a pro bono or
a charity basis. So I love that and I love
giving back, and I feel very passionate about that, but
I also need to pay my mortgage.
Absolutely. If you're doing this the way that you're doing this,
how many others around the country are doing it as well.
It's a great question. It's a great question.
It's not something that you hear about all the time
when you talk about autism. You hear aba therapy or
whatever they might be thinking about. Dog therapy is not
on the tip of their tongue. That's where you have
to get them to the point of where they're thinking
about that as well.
Exactly exactly, And I'm hoping.
I have a couple of speaking engagements coming up that
I'm really excited about. One in North Conway, New Hampshire,
and one in Cleveland, Ohio that are going to be
US Space conferences. So all of the public speaking opportunities
that I've done prior to this for Autism Marks have
all been internationally.
Based, which have been amazing.
And I mean, for your first ever public speaking engagement
to be in Dubai.
You know, pretty cool.
Yeah.
I've made wonderful, wonderful connections, and like I said, that
experience is what brought Autism Marks to light. I'm excited
about these US based conferences because I'm hoping that I
can really start to make some connections with researchers in
the field, with other people that are working directly within
the autism community within the United States, to hopefully make
some partnerships and be able to kind of push Autism
Marks forward.
Yeah. I think that makes perfect sense to me.
And I'm not a therapist, but I know that talking
with people, they have talked about all kinds of things
that aren't good and it seems like if they had
a therapy dog to help them out that it just
might make a difference.
Yeah.
So it seems that these dogs might be the bridge
to not only help the situation, but really make some
change hugely.
There was a study done recently. It was either in
England or Ireland. They looked at ownership and the correlation
of suicide ideation in autistic adults and they did find
that autistic adults that owned dogs, and these were pet dogs,
they weren't specifically trained in any way, these were just
pet dogs, that suicidality decreased. You know, part of the reason, Tony,
that I'm so passionate about my love of animals is
I myself struggled with depression and anxiety and still do
today and did all through high school and college. If
I didn't have my dogs, I don't know what things
would look like.
They were really my main source of comfort that in
my face.
But having those dogs and that unconditional love and acceptance,
it just it does so much.
Yeah, I get that completely.
So now you're standing in front of your audience that
you're going to be doing some public speaking, what are
you telling them?
Going to be talking to them about the efficacy of
incorporating in molsisted intervention into autism treatment, so that we're
going to see better sleep habits, We're going.
To see improved social communication, We're.
Going to see a decrease in poll current mental health symptoms,
and we're going to see an increased level of confidence
in the autistic individuals that are interacting with these animals.
That's great. Well, I really appreciate you coming on. This's
been great.
Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity.
To speak with you, and I could talk about autism
and dogs all day, every day, so this is really wonderful.
I totally agree. It's been my pleasure.
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