What kind of skills should we teach our service dog?

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We are in the process of getting a service dog for our Aspie son (he is . He struggles greatly with meltdowns and anxiety. I was wondering what skills specifically we should ask the handlers to teach our dog that would help him? Does anyone have experience with this and what has helped them in a meltdown or panic attack?

Kat

First question to ask yourself - what are the things he needs help with that a dog can help with (that are not companionship)? Get this list together (and feel free to post it here if you want to).

Next, for each of those, what can the dog do?

For meltdowns common things that dogs do are providing deep pressure and alerting to or attempting to prevent self injury. They also will sometimes redirect the kid to doing something explicitly with them - I've heard of dogs bringing their brush to their person and making the person brush them.

I would say he needs help with:

deep pressure
redirection
unconditional affection in a meltdown (he is non-violent, but doesn't like to be spoken to during a meltdown)
currently, his 2 year old sister is like the "Aspie-whisperer" and can calm him down like no one can with simple touch and innocent love
calming stimming
reengaging the people around him after a meltdown
keeping on track in public places so he doesn't get distracted away from family/etc

open to other ideas I haven't thought of