An
unexpected benefit of adopting Annie, my family’s 18kg, floppy-eared mutt, is
the soothing effect she has had on my
children. My sons often come home from a
long, packed day at school and flop down on the floor next to Annie’s bed,
lying quietly while she licks their fingers and cheeks. Or they will rub her
belly, taking a beat before they pivot to dinner and homework and everything
else that needs to happen before they head to bed.
اضافة اعلان
Annie is a true
rascal with endless energy, but her mere presence calms my children in a way I
did not see coming when we brought her home more than a year ago.
A study published
recently shines a light on that powerful child-canine connection. It found that
twice-weekly sessions with a dog and its handler significantly lowered
children’s levels of cortisol — the body’s stress hormone — which they measured
through saliva samples. The intervention appeared to be more effective than
guided relaxation sessions.
“Our study shows,
for the first time, that dog-assisted interventions can indeed lead to lower
stress in children, with and without special educational needs, over a typical
school term,” said Kerstin Meints, a professor in developmental psychology at
the University of Lincoln in England, and one of the study’s researchers.
Her team’s
randomized, controlled trial, published in the journal
PLOS ONE, included 149
neurotypical and non-neurotypical eight- and nine-year-olds in Britain, who
were sorted into three groups.
Our study shows, for the first time, that dog-assisted interventions can indeed lead to lower stress in children, with and without special educational needs ...
In one group,
children spent 20 minutes twice a week, over the course of a month, with a
trained dog and its handler. They would pet the dog for a few minutes if the
dog and children were up for it, ask some questions, and play. In another
group, children worked on relaxation exercises over the same time frame without
any dogs around, doing things like wiggling their fingers and toes before lying
down on yoga mats to listen to a guided meditation. A third group served as a
control.
Researchers took
saliva samples from all of the children to measure their cortisol levels before
and after the four-week trial, and also measured the neurotypical children’s
cortisol levels before and after each session. Overall, they found that
children in the dog-intervention group had lower cortisol levels than their
peers in both the relaxation and control groups.
“As a clinical
handler who works full-time with a facility dog, I am not surprised to see such
positive results coming out of this study,” said Ali Spikestein, coordinator of
the Paws and Play dog program at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital in
New York City, who was not involved in the new study.
Spikestein is
well-acquainted with the therapeutic potential of canines, working with her
hospital’s three Goldendoodles — Professor, Amos, and Moby — to sit and
sometimes cuddle with children who are experiencing significant pain or who are
struggling with simply being in a hospital setting. But she said it was
“exciting and promising” to see a new study specifically looking at the
potential role dogs could play in calming otherwise healthy children in
schools.
Indeed, researchers
and mental health professionals say there is a real need for more research into
how animal-assisted interventions of all kinds can help children. Meints also
hopes to see more controlled trials as well as longer-term studies that can
answer questions about how often kids should partake in dog-assisted therapy
sessions, and how long the sessions should last. There are also big questions
about how important it is for children to be able to touch the dog during
sessions, or whether it is simply enough for them to be in the presence of the
animal, she said, and about whether group or individual therapy is best.
Tempting though it
may be for parents like me to extrapolate, there is a big difference between
canine therapy and the kinds of unpredictable interactions children and pets
have when they are simply hanging out together at home. (Although research has
demonstrated that dog ownership may be good for children’s psychological
development.)
“There is a difference
between a trained animal and a household pet,” said Dr Arun Handa, an attending
psychiatrist with the department of child and adolescent psychiatry at
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “That being said, it’s not unreasonable
that household pets can provide some kind of comfort and support.”
Researchers and mental health professionals say there is a real need for more research into how animal-assisted interventions of all kinds can help children.
No matter the
setting, children must be taught how to interact with dogs, and the
American Academy of Pediatrics offers parents guidance about choosing and living with a
family pet. The children in the new study were reminded before sessions not to
kiss, hug, or crowd their therapy dogs in any way, and were always closely
monitored by adults. The team looked for signs the dogs were unhappy, like
nose-licking, moving their body or head away, or repeated yawning, and ended
any sessions in which the dogs seemed tired or like they no longer wanted to
take part.
I can attest that
in my own home, that kind of training is ongoing. Sometimes, I have to remind
my sons to give Annie her space; other times, she is the one who needs
reminding. But more often than not, my children and my dog seem to share an
emotional understanding that I cannot help but feel is good for them.
“Animals provide this unconditional love,” Handa said, “and
come from a place of nonjudgmental support.”
Read more Health
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
