A Systematic Review of Dog-Assisted Therapy in Children with Behavioural and Developmental Disorders

Abstract

Objectives Animal-assisted therapy with dogs is regularly used in children with behavioural and developmental disorders. Aims of this systematic review were threefold: to analyse the methodological quality of studies on dog-assisted therapy (DAT) for children with behavioural and developmental disorders, to determine to which extent the studies on DAT adhere to the quality criteria developed by the International Association of Human Animal Interaction Organisation (IAHAIO) and to describe the characteristics of the participants, the intervention and the outcomes. Method Three databases (i.e. PsycInfo, MedLine and Eric) were searched, and 14 studies on DAT were included. The Joanna Briggs Institute checklist (JBIC) and the quality criteria developed by the IAHAIO were used during data extraction. Characteristics of the participants, the intervention, the therapy dogs and the outcomes of the studies were summarised. Results Six of the 14 included studies reported significant outcomes of DAT, whereof six in the social domain and two in the psychological domain. However, scores on the JBIC indicated low to moderate methodological quality and only three of the included studies adhered to the IAHAIO quality criteria. Conclusions DAT is a promising intervention for children with behavioural and developmental disorders, especially for children with autism spectrum disorder. A clear description of the therapy’s components, the role of the therapy dog and analysis of the treatment integrity and procedural fidelity would improve the methodological quality of the studies and the field of dog-assisted interventions.

All Creatures Great and Small: A Review and Typology of Employee-Animal Interactions

“…Database searches are ideal for sourcing literature in its infancy as they avoid missing cutting-edge articles published in specialty and niche journals. Thus, we began with a Advocacy (Gaarder, 2008;Haris, 2022) Shelter work (Frommer & Arluke, 1999; Hoy-Gerlach, Delgado, Sloane, & Arkow, 2019) Veterinary medicine (Black et al, 2011 Therapy (Hüsgen et al, 2022;Rostami Haji Abadi, Hase, Dell, Johnston, & Kontulainen, 2022) Law enforcement (Horváth, Dóka, & Miklósi, 2008;Sandrin et al, 2022) Service animals (Dell & Poole, 2015;Sedova, 2022 A manual review of all retrieved abstracts revealed high overlap and confirmed the comprehensiveness of our approach.…”

“…The second form of employee-animal interaction is the coworker relationship, wherein animals work with humans. This may entail either collaboration on the same task, such as conducting arrests in law enforcement (Hart, Zasloff, Bryson, & Christensen, 2000; Schuurman, 2021), or supporting patients in therapy (Cavalli, Carballo, Dzik, & Bentosela, 2019; Hüsgen, Peters-Scheffer, & Didden, 2022; Prothmann, Bienert, & Ettrich, 2006). Alternatively, animals support and supplement human work via their unique skills and capabilities.…”

Dog Assisted Activities and Their Effect on the Depression of Elementary Students

“…Unfortunately, this school was the only one, among other private and public schools that replied positively to the researchers' proposal to participate in this research. Therefore, any result generilisation should be done with serious consideration of the above limitations, since the size and the distribution of the sample is neither large nor necessarily representative (Grové et al, 2021;Hüsgen et al, 2022;Mitchell, 2019;Wintermantel & Grove, 2022).…”

Ispitivanje povezanosti terapije Ayres senzoričke integracije (ASI®) uz terapijskog psa (AAT) i stupnja potrebne podrške djetetu prema Međunarodnoj klasifikaciji funkcioniranja, onesposobljenosti i zdravlja (MKF)

“…U istraživanjima povezanima sa psima pomagačima, terapijskim psima odnosno terapijom sa životinjama (AAT) najčešće su primjenjivani anketni upitnici ili intervjui s korisnicima i njihovim skrbnicima, zbog čega je ovo bila prilika da se istraživanje provede kroz primjenu opservacijskih upitnika koji sagledavaju samostalnost i napredak djeteta unutar terapijskih susreta i aktivnosti te kategorija MKF-a. 19 Iako u ovom istraživanju rezultati ukazuju na značajno manju podršku koja je djetetu potrebna u aktivnostima i regulaciji ponašanja nakon ASI-ja ® i AAT-a uz terapijskog psa, potrebno je ispitati utjecaj ovog terapijskog pristupa na funkcioniranje i samostalnosti djece u svakodnevnim životnim aktivnostima i okupacijama te senzoričkom funkcioniranju u svakodnevici. Također teško je odrediti koliki je bio utjecaj terapijskog psa ili ASI-ja ® te u kojem omjeru, a koji je dio rezultata posljedica biopsihosocijalnog razvoja djeteta.…”