Impact of Animal-Assisted Intervention Dogs on the Performance Behaviors of Special Needs

Status: Recruiting
Location: See location...
Intervention Type: Other
Study Type: Interventional
Study Phase: Not Applicable
SUMMARY

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder usually diagnosed in early childhood. Children with ASD exhibit social communication and interaction problems, which may cause deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, problems with developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships, and abnormal nonverbal communicative behaviors such as impaired eye contact and body language. Some children with ASD have severe behavioral problems, such as stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, and extreme distress at small changes. ASD is a complex and individualized disorder, which creates challenges in treatment. Animal-assisted education (AAE) programmes have been introduced for children with special needs in other countries such as the United States and Australia. PAALS (Palmetto Animal Assisted Life Services) in the United States have introduced the Pet a PAALS Dog programme, which assists stressed students at USC (University of South Carolina). Assistance Dogs Australia has provided an Educational Support Dog Echo to Kalinda Support School, for children with a wide range of disabilities. Existing literature indicate the benefit of animal-assisted therapy on physical, behavioral, and cognitive disabilities, especially in social and communication disorders. Formally trained human-dog teams in animal-assisted interventions (AAI) can play a unique role in social and communicative development that schools, and caregivers may not be able to provide. Interacting with animal-assisted intervention dogs can increase children with ASD\'s social interaction, communication, and effective connection. Dogs can also provide emotional support in stressful situations such as calming the child down when they have a tantrum. Moreover, animal-assisted therapy has shown to decrease stress levels, anxiety, and restrictive and repetitive behavior patterns. Dogs as pets can also bring significant improvements to caregivers of children with ASD and improve conflict management. Based on a successful pilot trial in 2019 with 8 children showed that AAI program has a positive effect on the performance of children with ASD, The investigator proposed an observational study that tracks the effectiveness of an animal-assisted intervention programme in a local school for children with ASD and developmental disabilities.

Eligibility
Participation Requirements
Sex: All
Minimum Age: 6
Maximum Age: 18
Healthy Volunteers: f
View:

• Either gender aged 6 to 18 years old; have mild to moderate autism

Locations
Other Locations
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Special Schools in Hong Kong
RECRUITING
Hong Kong
Contact Information
Primary
Dr. Wilfred Wong
whswong@hku.hk
85222554945
Time Frame
Start Date: 2019-04-01
Estimated Completion Date: 2025-12-31
Participants
Target number of participants: 66
Treatments
No_intervention: Control Group
Students join the standard class at the same time slot
Experimental: Intervention Group
The teacher will work on the training goals with incorporation of the dog in the activity. For example, in the training of comprehension of commands, participant would be asked to take one item out of a few items, and then to pass to the dog. If correction of articulation errors is indicated (e.g. misarticulated /k/), training items would be picked under consideration of linkage to dogs. Words like '狗' /kɐu2/ and '教' /kau3/ would be used as stimuli during training.
Related Therapeutic Areas
Sponsors
Leads: The University of Hong Kong

This content was sourced from clinicaltrials.gov