Pet Psychotherapy: Use of Household Pets in the Treatment of Behavior Disorder in Childhood

Levinson, Boris M.

doi:10.2466/pr0.1965.17.3.695

Cited by 59 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Classic early examples come from the work of Boris Levinson (1962Levinson ( , 1964Levinson ( , 1965Levinson ( , 1970 who, in his psycho-therapy sessions with children, indicated that the presence of his dog Jingles served as a catalytic agent in the therapeutic process by "breaking the ice," providing a source of unconditional love and support that was particularly beneficial to children who were more withdrawn or socially isolated. In particular, he described the "social lubricant" function of the presence of a dog in the therapeutic environment (Levinson 1969).…”

Section: Anthrozoösmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Presence of a Therapy Dog Results in Improved Object Recognition Performance in Preschool Children

et al. 2012

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The purpose of this study was to determine whether the presence of a dog would have an impact on object recognition memory performance of preschool children. This work represents an extension of previous research which found that preschoolers require fewer instructional prompts to complete this type of memory task when in the presence of a dog. If children require fewer instructional prompts it is possible that they are better able to focus on the task itself and as a result, improved memory performance is likely. Because the earlier experiment utilized a very simple version of the task that was readily completed by the preschool children, the overall performance data were at ceiling. The current study, involving 20 preschool children, included a manipulation of task difficulty through varying the number of distracters (one versus four) present at test. Increasing the number of distractors in a simple recognition task is known to make that task more challenging, and thus performance was expected to be slower and less accurate in the four distracter conditions relative to the one-distracter conditions. The collaborators in the study were either a therapy dog or a human. A two-way repeated measures design was used such that each child served as his/her own control and was tested in each of four separate conditions: dog present (one and four distracters) and human present (one and four distracters). The results showed that the preschool children performed the object recognition task faster and more accurately in the presence of the therapy dog relative to a human and also in the one-distracter versus four-distracter condition. The authors conclude that these effects result from increased focus and/or motivation resulting from the presence of the dog. 289Anthrozoös

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Section: Anthrozoösmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Presence of a Therapy Dog Results in Improved Object Recognition Performance in Preschool Children

et al. 2012

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“…Gesamtpunkte aus der SEKS Diskussion ▼ Der Einsatz von Tieren zu Therapiezwecken ist nicht neu [ 6 ] . Allerdings rückt die Bedeutung als eigenständige Therapieform neben Physiotherapie, Ergotherapie und Logopädie erst in den letzten Jahren zunehmend in den Blickpunkt [ 7 ] .…”

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Hundgestützte multisensorische Therapie bei einer Patientin mit „persistierendem vegetativen Zustand“ – ein Fallbericht

Bardl¹,

Bardl

Kornhuber

2013

Rehabilitation

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The present case indicates that animal-assisted therapy can be a reasonable option to treat patients with most severe cerebral lesions. Furthermore, the results illustrate that the usual diagnostic classification such as "persistent vegetative state" based on a neurological investigation alone may be questionable. Possible reasons for the impact of animal-assisted therapy are complex and comprise e.g. multiple sensory stimuli.

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“…There is now a substantial accumulation of evidence that suggests that dogs can have a positive impact on children in a wide variety ways (e.g., Levinson 1962Levinson , 1964Levinson , 1965Levinson , 1970Mallon 1994;Reichert 1994;Hansen et al 1999;Hergovich et al 2002;Lieber 2002;Anderson and Olson 2006). While much of this evidence is anecdotal, observational, and based on self-report measures, there do appear to be some consistencies in this wide variety of research that should not be overlooked.…”

Section: Human-animal Interactionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preschoolers Categorize Animate Objects Better in the Presence of a Dog

et al. 2012

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The current study was designed to examine whether preschool children categorize picture stimuli differentially in the presence of a real dog compared with a stuffed dog or a human. Seventeen preschool children (age in months; M = 51.67, SD = 8.06), both Typical and those with a developmental delay ("Identified"), were asked to categorize Animate and Inanimate objects into two environments (Farm and Ocean) in each of three Collaborator conditions (Real Dog, Stuffed Dog, and Human). As predicted, there was a main effect of animation: the children more accurately categorized Animate (e.g., cow) exemplars than Inanimate ones (e.g., tractor). Additionally, the Animation variable interacted with Collaborator, such that in the presence of the real dog the impact of animation was significant, but this effect was not significant in the presence of the stuffed dog or human. This result indicates that the presence of the real dog served as a highly salient stimulus which encouraged the children to focus more of their attention on other animate objects in the list. This result provides additional evidence that the presence of a dog helps preschool children to restrict their attention to the demands of the task. This is a new and interesting finding that indicates that the presence of a real dog does have an impact on cognitive task performance.

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Pet Psychotherapy: Use of Household Pets in the Treatment of Behavior Disorder in Childhood

Cited by 59 publications

References 1 publication

The Presence of a Therapy Dog Results in Improved Object Recognition Performance in Preschool Children

The Presence of a Therapy Dog Results in Improved Object Recognition Performance in Preschool Children

Hundgestützte multisensorische Therapie bei einer Patientin mit „persistierendem vegetativen Zustand“ – ein Fallbericht

Preschoolers Categorize Animate Objects Better in the Presence of a Dog

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