Was talking about this and wanted to see if y'all have seen similar.

Seems a lot of animals act different around special needs people. Like my older brother is pretty far in the autism spectrum. Semi non verbal, and I'm not sure what all the other whatever would be to classify him, but he's 30 with lieka 3yr old mental capacity in most aspects. That being said he feeds the farm animals, does yard work and Even fishes by himself for the most part. Has his own lil schedule and way of doing things .. anyhow, noticed a long time ago, animals tend to act different towards him. Just in general horses and cow just seems a lot less skittish of him, even ones he's never had contact with, and dogs are a bit wary but generally pretty chill. Even dogs who kinda freak out around people ( we have a few we adopted that have ..less then good experiences with people and usually won't let you get within 5' of them) will look him up and down and just seem not that worried.

My other lil nephew is about on the same deal and noticed the families dog tends to let him get away with a lot more then my other nephew. I've seen it too with horses at fairs when they have like a special needs deal going. You can tell by their body language something is up the way they interact with the kids with down syndrome, autism ect vs a average person.... Idk I know animals will pick up on your whatever ( there's actually science backing that up , pheromones, body language and the like) but what about handi caps ?
Anyone see similar?

Yes. You’re correct, animals sense their differences. CJ can walk up to any animal and look them straight in the eyes and tell me they won’t hurt him. I sometimes think people with disabilities are actually smarter than most of us. We see things how we were taught and indoctrinated…they see things how they really are.

Yep, we had people all the time tell us how we could basically coddle my brother and honestly half of them big me to no friggen end. Same with my nephew. I know I'll watch him and most of the time the women folk think he's struggling with something but really he's figuring out how something works. I know one time I was babysitting. He brought me a pack of side walk chalk, some fancy ones that screw in and out. I pooped it open worked one. Put it back in the package and gave it to him. Whole time he was watching. Gf got mad and went to open it back and I told her to stop limiting him hes not stupid. About two minutes later he had everything opened up drawing so super detailed stuff . Then proceeded to pack it all up just the way it was and put it back up. She was amazed,I just shrugged and told her hair because she has a degree in childhood development doesn't mean she's right about everything. Most special need peoples brains just operate more in certain parts. Same with people with ADHD, ADD depression etc..... actual ADHD ADD depression ect , not just kids who don't get out enough. You can look at a few studies where they do the Bain monitoring stuff and see the different Brains operate or have more activity in certain parts then other "Normal brains" ..anybhow I'm rambling now

People with autism tend to avoid eye contact also. Animals are less threatened in that regard. I've also seen autistic kids that are terrified by animals. I brought my lab to work one day and one of our guys jumped over the back of the couch he was sitting on to get away, and the dog wasn't even close.
Some would learn like Wolfie described, others would manipulate us to do things for them when they could do some basic tasks, and so many others just weren't 'there'.
Retired from almost 37 years of working with the developmentally disabled.

Thank you for your work and dedication sir!
CJ has Asperger’s or high functioning Autism. We really really saw it when he was a baby and through his toddler years and I know they never not have it, but I swear this kid has made some serious progress.
He’s now in his second year of normal classes and just got an award for all A honor roll for the year. Was given an award for most athletic in his class and received an award for computer technology.
It’s almost like he’s outgrowing it.
We still see things people don’t, but if you didn’t know he had it, you’d never guess it.

Now Brian, you might notice it, but the average person doesn’t.

Temple Gradin

www.amazon.com/Animals-Translation-Mysteries-Behavior-Harvest/dp/0156031442

An autistic woman's view of animals. This woman's take on animal behavior is second to none
Most animal slaughter places are now designed with her views in place.

This book is a game changer for anyone who works with animals.

Some of my relation would take a dog around and allow special needs people to get exposed to her trained dog and it would eventually calm them down once they became used to the dog and they had better days when the dog was around.

We have clinic cats and one of them is pretty sensitive. We had a special needs person come with their family and she practically ran into the room and screamed because she didn’t know what to do. Ended up peeing in the hallway. Their energy is just different. It wasn’t good nor bad but it struck a chord with our little kitty

Temple Grandin is who came to my mind as soon as I read Wolfdog’s post. I just finished up a writing a review of some of her work. She is a very interesting person. If you have not seen it already, I suggest watching her presentation ‘The World Needs All Kinds of Minds.’ She outlines exactly what you’re talking about, Wolfdog.

I saw a video on u-toob about a special needs kid that approached an horseback Palace Guard in England, and you could visibly tell the horse was empathic, and drawn towards him.

This is the reason "emotional support Animals" can be a good thing. It is too bad it is abused....

Truth

Regular people do some crazy things I don’t know if they even think before they act animals pick up on that. When I took Abby (my pet skunk) to talks I would not let people near her face to avoid issues. People would often wiggle their fingers in her face like they wanted to get bitten not that she would do that but they did not have a clue.

Like people tapping on an aquarium they just can’t help it. Special needs people are often not a direct threat to animals unlike people the zero in on them and come directly at them.