In general, yes, but not in the same way people without autism do. Since children along the autism spectrum have difficulty showing emotion, sometimes we can't see the bonding directly and we only see the bonding by the reduction of the child's symptoms. As Temple Grandin says, "When you take a drug to treat high blood pressure or diabetes, you have an objective test to measure blood pressure and the amount of sugar in the blood. It is straight-forward. With autism, you are looking for changes in behavior."

In most non-Pawsitivity families, the dog bonds most strongly with the other members of the family, not the child with autism. Yet even those (non-Pawsitivity) families report that there is a significant improvement in quality of life measurements because the child is behaving better, both when the child is interacting with the dog and when the dog is simply around the child. Note that the dogs we have trained have a great track record of bonding with their child because we encourage a protocol of "All good things come from the handler" (the child should be the one who interacts with the dog, not the parents).

Pawsitivity families report that the dog is a benefit to rest of the family, too, by alleviating some of the stress that comes with caring for a child with autism.