RESEARCH - Therapeutic Riding Improves Autistic Children's Interaction With Pets

Researchers with the University of Colorado and Children’s Hospital Colorado undertook the first known study to examine the effects of therapeutic riding in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on their caring behaviours towards domestic pets.

Past studies have examined whether social skills are impacted by animal assisted therapy with dogs, and how dogs in the home positively impact caregivers.

Service dogs are now being trained for individuals with ASD, but this look at therapeutic riding is new.

A total of 67 children between the ages of six and 16 participated in the study.

31 took part in a therapeutic riding program and the remainder were involved with barn activities for 10 weeks.

The riding program included learning about horses as well as time in the saddle.

The barn activity group learned about horses, safety rules and horse care, but they had no physical contact with horses.

A consistent caregiver completed questionnaires about participants’ interactions with their household pets before and after the program.

Caregivers of therapeutic riding group participants reported significant improvements in participants’ caring actions with the family pet compared with the barn activity group.

The findings support previous studies that show interaction with animals can have a positive impact on children with ASD.

Researchers concluded: “Engaging with horses during a standard therapeutic riding intervention protocol may generalize to improving caring actions toward family pets in children and adolescents with ASD.

“Moving forward, measuring how caregivers and family functioning are also impacted by the human–animal interaction may be useful.”

DIGITAL - Pokémon GO Helps Kids with Autism

Pokémon GO may be a lot more than just a fun distraction for kids on the autism spectrum.

It has the potential to offer kids social engagement, outdoor activity, and a game that plays to their strengths while also providing developmental opportunities.

Pokémon GO, which gets players out of the house in their efforts to hatch eggs, visit Poké stops and gyms, and “catch ‘em all,” also has the potential to get autistic kids socializing and engaging in ways that they might otherwise struggle with or avoid.

Kids on the autism spectrum enjoy and benefit from screen-based media, including video games.

Although there has been controversy over how video games might contribute to anti-social behaviour in kids, parents of kids on the autism spectrum tend to support, rather than discourage, their kids’ interest in video games. Multiple studies have found that video games, particularly storytelling games, can contribute to positive social behaviour in kids on the autism spectrum.

Daniel Bormann of the University of Freiburg, the lead researcher in a 2015 study, said in a press release that video games hook into general principles of human motivation, and that “successful game franchises offer meaningful choices to shape the game's narrative and environment, provide carefully balanced challenges, or encourage players to experience social connectedness and meaningful social interactions.”

Pokémon GO takes these positive effects and amplifies them by bringing kids out of the house and giving them a ready-made social setting when they come across other players.

Intense focus and enthusiastic excitement are common features of kids on the autism spectrum, and can draw negative attention from their neurotypical counterparts. This can make socializing difficult, and is one of the barriers to neurodivergent kids successfully engaging with their peers.  

One parent, Lenore Koppelman, told CNN, “The kids are so fixated on catching Pokemon that they are concentrating on finding them more than they are concentrating on his behaviors like they usually do.”

Not only does Pokémon GO provide a shared focus for neurotypical kids and kids on the autism spectrum, it also allows autistic kids to shine by highlighting their strengths.

Kids on the autism spectrum tend to be great at memorizing facts and learning the details of an interest, and Pokémon GO rewards their focus. This shouldn’t be surprising, since Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the Pokémon franchise, is rumoured to have Asperger syndrome. The game was developed out of Tajiri’s love of bug collecting.

Kids with autism are not the only neurodivergent people seeing benefits from Pokémon GO.

Players with depression and anxiety have also reported that the game is helping them, even beyond the positive effects already associated with some video games.

So Pokémon GO and other video games can be included with options like animal assisted and more traditional therapy that have a positive impact on personal well-being.

Parents can learn more by downloading the Parents’ Guide to Pokémon GO.

By Tiffany Sostar

Tiffany is a writer, editor, academic, and animal lover who came late to her appreciation of pets. At 18, a rescue pup named Tasha saved her from a depression and she hasn't looked back. She has worked as the canine behaviour program coordinator for the Calgary Humane Society, and was a dog trainer specializing in working with fearful and reactive dogs for many years. She doesn't have any pets right now, but makes up for it by giving her petsitting clients (and any dogs she comes across on her frequent coffee shop adventures) extra snuggles.

INTERVIEW - Deb Davis, Paws With a Cause - A Leader in the Assistance Dog Industry

(LinkedIn)

Service dogs have historically been a great asset to persons living with vision impairment. In more recent years, the roles of service dogs have expanded to include assisting persons living with a range of disabilities or conditions, such as autism, asthma, seizures, brain injuries, PTSD and Lupus.

InfoStream caught up with Deb Davis, Community Outreach Manager with Paws With A Cause – a service dog training centre based out of Wayland, MI. The centre does custom training of service dogs, hearing dogs, service dogs for children with autism and seizure response dogs.

Davis shares some insights about the benefits of the relationship between service dogs and their humans, as well as some perspective on the growth of their segment of service dogs for children with autism.

InfoStream (IS): What makes working with service dogs special or unique for you?

Deb Davis (DD): What makes this work unique and special for me is our clients – people with disabilities who are able to change their life because of their assistance dog. They are some of the most amazing people I will ever know in my life, and my life has changed because of them.

IS: Your organization trains dogs to assist people in a variety of capacities, including seizure response, vision and hearing impairment and autism - could you please share with us how some of these newer areas have grown in popularity over the last few years?

DD: Training service dogs for children with autism has really caught on in the past five years. Our organization did a two-year study with an organization in Canada, prior to launching our own three-year pilot program for this discipline. At PAWS, we don't just train a dog and then hand over the leash and say 'have a nice life'. We work with the clients for 4 - 6 months, after their dog has already been trained specially for them for 4-6 months. That's a lot of time and a huge commitment on the client's part. So, when families who are living with autism reach out to apply for a dog, we feel honored to be able to provide them with another 'tool' in their autism toolbox.

Families who live with children with autism already have a lot of things to handle in their lives: the child, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy, play dates, school, etc. For them to accept a service dog into their lives is a great indication of their commitment to making their child's world one step easier.

Our Seizure Response Dog Program's popularity is another testament to our clients - people who want to live independently, yet live in constant fear that a seizure could severely hurt them or worse, kill them. We have clients who have a seizure response dog because they want to live alone, yet are fearful of suffocating in their pillow if they have a seizure during the night. That's pretty intense. Yet, they feel completely relieved of that fear by living with their seizure response dog. We have one client whose parents would not let him go off to college and live in the dorms until he could prove to them that he would work with his seizure response dog. I'm happy to say, they graduated.

IS: What does PAWS want people to know about what it is that makes an assistance dog more effective compared to human assistance options in some regards?

DD: The dog/human bond is an incredible thing to witness...for the human to be able to put their 100% trust in their dog is really a miracle before our eyes. The dog is a constant in their lives, 24 hours per day, day and night. Dogs don't have bad days, like aides do; dogs don't need batteries, like technology and machines do; medications reach a plateau of effectiveness and can change a person's behavior and reaction to stimuli; dogs don't. People who are hearing impaired/deaf who have a cochlear implant are still hearing impaired/deaf when they take off that cochlear implant; that's when they are most vulnerable. The dog is there as a constant reminder that they have someone to trust, and someone or something that is reliable and will take care of them.

(Paws With a Cause)

IS: What would you say to a parent with a child on the autism spectrum who is contemplating a service dog?

DD: After placing more than two dozen service dogs with children with autism, we've asked those parents what would they tell someone in this situation. Their overwhelming response has been "Do it!" Their fears were about having enough time to dedicate to the dog and when they realize that the dog folds into their already-established lifestyles, that fear is gone!

By Lindsay Seewalt
Lindsay is an experienced journalist and mother of three whose heart and home is always open to a four­-legged friend. With her Corgi, Angie, as household editor-­in-chief, Lindsay gives back to the animal planet through the written word on anything and all ado about pets. She is passionate about topics regarding animal welfare and responsible pet ownership, which she aims to instill in both her readers and children to be compassionate animal lovers who are conscious and considerate that furry friends around the globe deserve a voice.