I don’t know if you can compare autism and dogs. At least I would hope not
The animals choose the buttons themselves. For example, they can pick a button that says ‘snack’ or ‘cuddle’ or ‘outside’. When they choose ‘outside’ and walk to the door, then it does sorta seem like they meant what they said, but other times the button presses seem less coherent, so it is debatable how much of it is meaningful communication.
I don’t think she (Border collie/Golden retriever mix) does per se, but when she’s walking in front of me it’s a good bet I’m tilting my head imperceptibly in the stated direction and she picks up on the slight stereo imbalance in her noggin and heads that way, which to me is even smarter than knowing the actual words.
This pomsky does have a favorite button:
The facilitated communication fraud had non verbal severely developmentally delayed people expressing complex thoughts, including poetry.
I don’t think it’s implausible that a dog could associate a button saying “outside” with going outside. They can understand verbal commands after all.
Heck, if you show them a leash, or just say “leash”, they know what it means.
These buttons take into account the dog knows something.
And, said dog can make distinction between say, ball or leash. Or a few things.
Actually Bayliss will go and bring me certain things.
I can’t say go get the Lil’wrekkers phone and he’d know. But I can say get the remote. Usually he doesn’t bite down and change something. Slobber is always there.
That’s why you can teach the buttons mean a thing. You model it with your voice command, show them the thing. And then push the button and praise when they try the button. Nose or paw. Rinse, repeat about a million times and you have it. Existential thoughts and sentences are a hit and miss thing.
Funny tho’, I never taught the Chihuahuas but they watched Bayliss get treats and attention and learned some buttons on their own.
And I thought Malinois were Belgian! Although the city is Mechelen (Flemish), the dogs are known after the French name of the city (Malines). Never would have thought they spoke Polish there too, but you never know with the Belgians, perhaps they have adopted it as lingua franca. Their dogs are probably bilingual out of necessity, saves them a lot of trouble.