Therapy program assisted with therapy dogs for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
A. Huguet Miguel, N. Cornudella Solans, P. Vergés Balasch, J. Bergadà Bell-lloc, V. Pera Guardiola

TL;DR
A therapy program combining therapy dogs and cognitive behavioral therapy may help children with autism improve emotional regulation and sleep issues.
Contribution
This study explores the combined use of animal-assisted therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy for children with ASD.
Findings
Both groups showed improved emotional regulation, but the experimental group improved more significantly.
Significant improvements in sleep disturbances were observed in both groups.
The combination of AAT and CBT shows potential as an intervention strategy for children with ASD.
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with an estimated lifetime prevalence of at least 1%. Some studies suggest that approximately 60% of children with ASD show emotional dysregulation and 44-86% sleeping disorders. Studies suggest that cognitive behavioral therapy and animal-assisted therapy AAT can be an intervention strategy to promote emotional and behavioral dysregulation and sleep disturbances. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a therapy program assisted with dogs (AAT) together with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) on behavioral and emotional regulation and sleep disorders in children diagnosed with ASD. The sample was composed of 24 children between 7 and 10 years old diagnosed with ASD randomized into two groups (CGT group (control group) and AAT + CBT group (experimental group). Inclusion criteria: communication level…
Genes, proteins, chemicals, diseases, species, mutations and cell lines named across the full text — each resolved to its canonical identifier and authoritative record.
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsHuman-Animal Interaction Studies · Autism Spectrum Disorder Research · Infant Health and Development
