New Term Affiliated with AAT (Animal-Assisted Therapy)

I was trying to find information about animal-assisted therapy and children with down syndrome, and I stumbled upon this instead: http://www.censhare.umn.edu/AAT.html

There is a difference between Animal-Assisted Activities (AAA) and Animal-Assisted Therapy. AAA is where volunteers take their pets to visit certain places for the social benefit of petting and playing. AAT is what I have been researching, where health care professionals or certified therapists use their animal for treatment purposes. I was glad I found this :) I was under the impression that one did not need to be certified in order to work therapeutically with children and animals, and that really made me a little nervous-because so many things could go wrong!

"They need to like people, be controllable, be trained, well mannered, and of the utmost stable personality." This was in the article, regarding the personality of the animal being used for AAT. However, the animal handler needs to "be able to communicate with his/her animal in a gentle, positive manner; recognize their animal's particular signs of stress; and know how to help their animal." These things will help prevent any dangerous situations from arising :) When working with children, we must keep their safety in mind! This site provides a lot of information as to how one can become a volunteer with their animal for therapeutic reasons. Though the site is for Minnesota, it is still very informative.

Elephant Assisted Therapy

Hello all! This is the link I found about elephant-assisted therapy for children with disabilities:

http://www.equine-therapy-programs.com/elphant-assisted-therapy.html

Elephant assisted therapy is mostly practiced in South Africa and Jerusalem. Psychologist Dr. Swanepoel originally started off with studying dolphin assisted therapy and moved on to researching the therapeutic qualities that elephants could have on children with disabilities. Elephants are overprotective and gentle with their young and seem to sense when they are near an individual with a disability.

There was a particular story on this website that involved a ten-year old little girl that was born without eyes. She couldn't perform daily tasks on her own and was very fearful to attempt anything out of the norm. After being introduced to an elephant named Boelie, she became very interested in the elephant's size and texture. Within three months, the little girl was able to go tot he restroom on her own, clothe herself, walk up and down stairs, and read braille. Most of all, she gained a significant amount of confidence! I just really enjoyed this a lot-I have never heard about elephants (or even dolphins, for that matter) being used for animal assisted therapy sessions. Absolutely amazing! Now imagine bringing that into your classroom :) Animals have such amazing powers...

More Dog Information

I am finding a ton about dogs as being one of the most common animals used for animal-assisted therapy :) Although, I did find an article about elephants being used as well (I will post this later!). Anyway, I found this website with a small article that went into more detail about what kinds of therapy techniques are used with children with special needs and dogs. I particularly liked this quote:

"Children are often extremely trusting and easily achieve a level of intimacy with animals. This special bond contributes to pets’ effectiveness as co-therapists."

I just really feel that this explains all too well why animals are such a fantastic benefit to those with disabilities. Children are very trusting and really seem to bond with animals quite well :)

Here is the article: http://www.kidneeds.com/diagnostic_categories/articles/animalassistedtherapy.htm

There was one therapy technique that was used with dogs by St. Mary's Hospital for Children that involved children recovering from traumatic brain injuries that had difficulties with dressing or grooming themselves. The children would be given a brush with a special handle and would be asked to brush or pet the dog. They may also place a wrist weight on the child to help strengthen their muscles. This makes achieving the therapy goals quicker and more exciting for the children...Read more of the article if you want more specific details :) I didn't want to write the entire article on here.

Also, I want to apologize about the last link in my previous post! I forgot that if you find articles on ERIC on our school website that you have to log-in to view the links-so just log in and you will be able to see it :) I tried it out. Sorry, again! Elephants are in my next post, so stay tuned!

Exploring Animal-Assisted Therapy Programs

I found this interesting article that explored animal-assisted therapy programs (mostly about dogs) within school settings: http://journals.ohiolink.edu.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/ejc/pdf.cgi/Friesen_Lori.pdf?issn=10823301&issue=v37i0004&article=261_eapwcisatc

At the beginning of the article, there was a scenario with students working with a speech therapist. Each time they pronounced a word correctly, they got to flip over a card, and if it contained a bone-they would get to go pet the pet dog and say the word "sit" (to practice to 's' sound) and give the dog a treat. The children loved this game and explained that the dog was a "great listener". I found this to be a great motivator :) I had to go through speech therapy from Kindergarten through third grade, and I feel I would have enjoyed it much more if there was a pet involved!

The article goes on more to discuss the research aspect of using animals within the classroom and the pros and cons in doing so. I found it interesting at what some studies have found about the effects of using a dog for therapeutic reasons. Studies have found that children are more attentive and responsive in a classroom where a dog is present. They are a huge benefit for children physiologically, emotionally, socially, and physically. In therapeutic situations, dogs have increased alertness and attention spans. Now I know this goes a little beyond just focusing on children with disabilities, but 'disability' is such a broad term for all of the different symptoms that can occur depending on the type of disability...Anyway, I hope you all find this interesting-I know that I did :) Now I want to look up more about dogs and what sort of disabilities are most compatible with them...I am emailing Animal Planet to see if they can find me a copy of the video with the child with autism bonding with the bird :)

Animal-Assisted Therapy for Children with Disabilities

I was watching the Animal Planet channel about a year ago, when I witnessed a show about a bird wildlife rescue center that participated in an animal therapy program to help children with disabilities. Specifically, it focused on a child diagnosed with autism, and how a particular bird helped soothe his temper. It was extremely interesting, considering I am a huge animal lover, and it got me wondering about a number of things...Throughout this quarter, I am going to research the topic of animal-assisted therapy for children with disabilities. I want to research how beneficial and therapeutic animals can be for children with disabilities, what types of animals are considered to be best for animal assisted therapy, what type of disabilities certain animals seem to be most compatible with, how an educator can incorporate the use of animal therapy in their classroom, and a number of other things as I come across them :)

I am actually really excited about this! I know a lot of teachers do not really enjoy having a classroom pet (my mentor HATED rodents), but I really feel animals can be extremely beneficial in a classroom. In addition to being therapeutic to children (and adults) with disabilities, animals can assist patients in hospitals, disaster victims, elderly people in nursing homes, hospices and retirement homes, and prison inmates. Petting animals can lower stress, and I highly believe in this (I have two cats of my own-and they help tremendously when I am in a foul mood!). Here is a quick site that I found when trying to dig up the video I mentioned about the child with autism befriending a bird: http://animal.discovery.com/roar/getinvolved/pettherapy.html This site discusses the topic of animal-assisted therapy in a nutshell. The site is ran by R.O.A.R. (Reach Out. Act. Respond), which is an organization that is dedicated to help animals and making a difference :) Thought I'd post this as a sort of introduction to all of the research that will follow that will be more on topic with how animal-assisted therapy can help children with disabilities. I will try to find that video...I'm having a tough time finding it :(