Exploring the impact of animal assisted therapy for preschool children with speech and language delay – A preliminary study

Animal-assisted therapy, or AAT, refers to a goal-directed intervention in which a specially trained animal-handler team is a key component of the treatment process (Animal Assisted Intervention International, 2013). Two therapy dogs will be involved in the study: Basil, a 7-year-old male black standard poodle, and Polly, a 6-year-old female apricot standard poodle. The dogs will play an active role in the sessions with the children, who will touch, brush, walk, play and lay against the dogs, as deemed appropriate to the goals being addressed and the willingness of the children to engage in these tasks. Both animals have been certified as therapy dogs through Lead the Way Institute and Alpha Canine Professional and have had veterinary approval for therapy work. Both animals are owned and handled by the student researcher (who is a fully qualified speech pathologist with four years clinical experience) and have had experience working with children and adults in a therapeutic context. Each child will be matched with either Polly or Basil in the initial session and will remain with that dog for the duration of the AAT treatment (excepting in the instance of illness or injury to the dog). The involvement of two dogs in the trial is to optimize the wellbeing of the dogs by minimizing the number of hours required of the dog to work per day. The research will be conducted by the student researcher in a paediatric therapy room at Gippsland Lakes Community Health, which has been fitted with fixed video recording equipment, as well as a double-sided mirror and observation room. Materials used will be items routinely seen in a paediatric speech pathology session, including books, visual timetable, toys, picture cards, doll houses, chalkboards, bubbles and playdough. The therapy provided in these sessions will be business as usual for early intervention, with the therapy dogs acting as another tool to provide evidence-based therapeutic intervention Following a repeated-measures design, all ten participants will undergo baseline assessment prior to treatment. Assessment will also be completed at weeks 5 (prior to crossover) and 10. Given the proximity in which assessments will be re-administered, as well as the young age of the children in the study, language sampling will be used to ensure ecological validity, as well as mitigate the possibility of practice effect which is a risk with using standardized formal assessments. All participants will attend 45 minute sessions weekly for 10 weeks.