Dog-Assisted Physical Activity Intervention in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Feasibility and Efficacy Exploratory Study

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.…”

Effectiveness of animal-assisted activities and therapies for autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Such interventions have also been found to reduce problem behaviors and aggression ( 60 , 61 ), as well as enhance self-regulation, adaptive behavior, and coordination ( 32 , 46 , 54 , 55 , 62 ). Importantly, AAAT has been noted to significantly increase the minutes of mild physical activity and substantially reduce sedentary minutes in ASD patients ( 30 , 63 ). However, some studies suggest that improvements in task completion rates and times in AAAT-involved ASD patients do not differ significantly from those in non-animal-involved occupational therapy control groups ( 28 ).…”

“…Current hypotheses about the mechanisms through which AAAT affects ASD patients focus on five principal domains: (1) AAAT effectively captures the attention of ASD children, filtering out irrelevant external stimuli and thereby enabling longer periods of focus on environmental demands, which enhances social engagement ( 8 , 41 ); (2) AAAT stimulates the vestibular and proprioceptive sensory systems in ASD patients, facilitating better body awareness, which in turn leads to improvements in sensory integration and bodily control ( 45 ); (3) the act of tactile interaction with animals allows ASD patients to establish a healthy emotional feedback loop, consequently alleviating stress levels ( 34 , 47 , 71 ); (4) physical exercise plays a crucial role in ASD treatment. The allure of animals encourages various forms of physical engagement in ASD patients, which then promotes improved behavioral and motor skills ( 8 , 63 ); (5) during the AAAT process, therapists often issue commands to animals while encouraging ASD patients to interact with them, thereby enhancing the communicative abilities of the patients ( 32 ). Overall, the efficacy of AAAT for treating ASD can be explained through a biopsychosocial model, where biological, psychological, and social factors interact to produce beneficial therapeutic outcomes.…”

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“…(2) AAAT stimulates the vestibular and proprioceptive sensory systems in ASD patients, facilitating better body awareness, which in turn leads to improvements in sensory integration and bodily control (45); (3) the act of tactile interaction with animals allows ASD patients to establish a healthy emotional feedback loop, consequently alleviating stress levels (34,47,71); (4) physical exercise plays a crucial role in ASD treatment. The allure of animals encourages various forms of physical engagement in ASD patients, which then promotes improved behavioral and motor skills (8,63); (5) during the AAAT process, therapists often issue commands to animals while encouraging ASD patients to interact with them, thereby enhancing the communicative abilities of the patients (32). Overall, the efficacy of AAAT for treating ASD can be explained through a biopsychosocial model, where biological, psychological, and social factors interact to produce beneficial therapeutic outcomes.…”