Now family life is being restored.

Joe is getting out and about and learning to read and write. He has even started teaching himself Spanish due to a specially trained dog called Lacey.

After hearing about an organisation in Canada that had been successfully training dogs for children with autism, mum Paula Craik was determined to find a dog for Joe.

She got in touch with the charity Support Dogs, who agreed to help.

Before Joe could be partnered with a trained autism assistance dog, he had to be introduced to dogs in general to see his reaction.

He spent some time with Forfar Guide Dogs, where he struck up a good rapport with the animals.

After months of searching, Joe became the first child in mainland UK to receive a specially- trained, registered dog to help him with his condition and labrador Lacey was introduced to the family. The family underwent extensive training on how to deal with Lacey and Joe, but Paula described the immediate change as “amazing”.

She said, “Before Lacey, Joe didn’t have a lot of understanding of danger.

“He couldn’t understand what we were trying to tell him if we tried to hold his hand because he doesn’t like touch.

“He didn’t like busy, noisy or bright places and tended to like his own company.”

Quite often, if Joe was taken into a supermarket, he would find the environment overwhelming and because of his autism he would be unable to express himself, so it often resulted in a severe temper tantrum.

If he were in a situation he was unhappy with, he would often need to be restrained sometimes causing injury to his mum or hurting himself.

Joe’s condition affected the whole family, as they were unable to go out together and socialise.

Now, Joe is attached to Lacey’s harness when they go out together, and the dog is trained to make sure he cannot bolt and place himself in danger.

Paula said, “Lacey has changed all our lives completely. Lacey has taken the pressure off him.

“She is like an extension of Joe. We talk to the dog and tell her what to do and as a result he has learned to wait at a kerb and know left from right.

“Because children with autism are insular, they don’t want to look at people and they are unapproachable.

“Now people can ask him his dog’s name and sometimes he will answer. Sometimes he won’t answer but he now manages to look at them. Before Lacey, Joe could only say about 10 words. Paula described the amazing moment in which Joe spoke in one of his first full sentences.

“There was a little girl running around crazy in a shop and Joe turned to Lacey and said, ‘That’s a bad girl, Lacey. You’re a good girl.’

“I was shocked, every time something happens like this, we’re just totally overwhelmed.

Now that the initial objective of securing Joe’s safety in public has been achieved, Lacey is about to embark on further training.

This will see her learn to perform additional safety tasks such as finding Joe if he were to manage to run away.

She will also learn to block Joe with her body so that if she becomes aware of him placing himself in danger she will stand in front of him and push him back.

It is estimated that more than 72,000 children aged between three and 10 have autism in the UK.