All About Monkey Helpers: Training, Abilities and More Information

Monkey helpers are assistance animals that are typically trained to help quadriplegics and other individuals with severe mobility-impairments. They live have an ability to grip that allows them to perform a wide range of household tasks such as microwaving food, turn pages in a book and operate simple home electronics. Due to their long lifespan and affectionate nature, monkey helpers also provide animal companionship that lasts multiple decades.

Breed

Of all the species of monkey, it is the capuchin that was chosen as the ideal monkey helper. Capuchins are more intelligent than any other monkey found in the New World, possessing a considerable learning ability and a good disposition. In the wild, they are known to repeatedly use a number of tools and to learn by observing other animals. Before ever becoming a trained monkey helper, capuchins were the monkeys known as the organ grinders that used to crank out music on street corners for tips.

Training

After a monkey helper has grown up in a human foster home, he's off to Monkey College at Helping Hands to learn the ropes of being an assistance animal. Training consists of the new monkey helper advancing through a number of training phases. At first, it's just monkey see and monkey do as the trainer performs a simple task like working a light switch and rewards the capuchin by ringing a bell when the action is repeated. By the end of the training, the graduate monkey helper is adept at correctly operating nearly all of the basic equipment in a home. For a cool video that shows the training of a monkey helper in greater detail, follow this link to YouTube.

Helping Hands

Helping Hands is the premier program behind training and providing helper monkeys. They have been training and placing for thirty years, and they have since grown into an internationally recognized organization with a mission of providing helper monkeys with people who have become quadriplegics due to injury, disease or accident. They note in their biography how the training of the monkey helpers has changed with the times, such as when they had to retrain them to handle CDs and DVDs instead of vinyl records. Helping Hands has also developed the Spinal Cord Injury Prevention Program (SCIPP) geared toward teaching young people how to avoid spinal cord injury.

Monkey College Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo4g2aKscaQ

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_helperhttp://wbztv.com/specialreports/Chris.Watts.Helping.2.575787.html
http://www.monkeyhelpers.org/http://www.accessible-devices.com/monkeys.html