Wellness Effects of Animal-assisted Activities With Autism Spectrum Disorder Youth in a Specialized Psychiatric Hospital

Summary

Background: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are at higher risk for developing co-existing mental health conditions and consequently experiencing psychiatric hospitalization, compared to the general pediatric population. However, hospital environments can be exceptionally stressful for this population, given their social-communication deficits, ineffective emotional regulation skills and heightened physiological arousal. While the use of animal-assisted activities (AAA) show potential for various improvements in children with ASD in community settings, these "stress-reducing" and "social-buffering" benefits have not yet been studied within a psychiatric hospital setting for youth with ASD.

Objectives: Evaluate whether an AAA with canines can lead to reduced physiological arousal and improvements in social-communication as well as aberrant behaviors in children and adolescents diagnosed with ASD in a specialized psychiatric hospital setting.

Methods: Participants were recruited from the Neuropsychiatric Special Care (NSC) program's inpatient and/or partial day-treatment program. Prior to study participation, baseline demographic measures were acquired from caregivers and participants' ASD diagnosis was confirmed. Participants experienced two, randomly assigned 35-minute sessions (AAA and Control Condition) with a minimum two-day washout period between groups. Each session included a baseline 20-minute social skills group immediately followed by a 10 minute experimental or control condition. The AAA condition introduced a canine and volunteer handler for free interaction time while the control condition introduced a novel toy and a volunteer for free interaction. Participants' physiological arousal was continuously assessed throughout all conditions via the Empatica E-4 wristbands (Empatica Inc. 2014). All sessions were videotaped for behavioral coding using the Observation of Human Animal Interaction for Research - Modified, v.1.

Conditions

• Child Behavior
• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Psychiatric Hospitalization
• Veterinary Therapeutics

Interventions

OTHER

Activity

10 minutes interaction with therapy dog and adult handler in small group (2-4 participants).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Human Animal Bond Institute for Research

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Purdue University

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Colorado, Denver

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Robin L Gabriels, Psy.D. · University of Colorado, Denver

Study Design

Allocation

NON_RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

SINGLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

4 Years

Max Age

16 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-08-06

Primary Completion

2017-02-27

Completion

2019-03-13