Hello everyone!
I hope you all had a wonderful week! This week marked the first week of the study, and I have had so much fun watching the kids interact with either a dog or a proxy everyday. The kids seem to be enjoying all of the activities so far, and each session has been running quite smoothly. As I have become acquainted with these kids, I think the biggest thing I have realized is that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is, indeed, a spectrum disorder. This may sound redundant, but even after reading about ASD, I had never truly anticipated just how broad this spectrum could be. For example, on the first day of the experiment, I met a child who was remarkably high-functioning. He is one of the smartest young boys I have ever met, and didn't seem to have too much trouble in social situations. On the other hand, later in the week, I met a little girl who had difficulties initiating any type of social interaction. She was prone to repetitive behaviors and sometimes had difficulties following directions. These are only a couple examples of the kids I met this week, but each child I have met has exposed me to a different aspect of ASD. Every child has demonstrated different symptoms, and this has helped me understand the "spectrum" aspect of ASD.
Through my independent research, I have gained a basic understanding of studies similar to the one we are currently conducting. According to one of the articles I read, experiments that evaluate the effects of Animal Assisted Interventions (AAIs) are too few and variable to make any solid conclusions about the effectiveness of AAI. The article stated that there is some evidence that suggests that AAI is beneficial to children with many different disorders, but there is no empirical data that really supports this claim. In addition, there are so many variables to account for that it is difficult to conduct studies that research AAI. [1] Even in my experience, during this past week I have witnessed how difficult it is to conduct studies like this. Several variables and possible problems have come up, and here are just a few that I have observed:
I hope you all had a wonderful week! This week marked the first week of the study, and I have had so much fun watching the kids interact with either a dog or a proxy everyday. The kids seem to be enjoying all of the activities so far, and each session has been running quite smoothly. As I have become acquainted with these kids, I think the biggest thing I have realized is that Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is, indeed, a spectrum disorder. This may sound redundant, but even after reading about ASD, I had never truly anticipated just how broad this spectrum could be. For example, on the first day of the experiment, I met a child who was remarkably high-functioning. He is one of the smartest young boys I have ever met, and didn't seem to have too much trouble in social situations. On the other hand, later in the week, I met a little girl who had difficulties initiating any type of social interaction. She was prone to repetitive behaviors and sometimes had difficulties following directions. These are only a couple examples of the kids I met this week, but each child I have met has exposed me to a different aspect of ASD. Every child has demonstrated different symptoms, and this has helped me understand the "spectrum" aspect of ASD.
Through my independent research, I have gained a basic understanding of studies similar to the one we are currently conducting. According to one of the articles I read, experiments that evaluate the effects of Animal Assisted Interventions (AAIs) are too few and variable to make any solid conclusions about the effectiveness of AAI. The article stated that there is some evidence that suggests that AAI is beneficial to children with many different disorders, but there is no empirical data that really supports this claim. In addition, there are so many variables to account for that it is difficult to conduct studies that research AAI. [1] Even in my experience, during this past week I have witnessed how difficult it is to conduct studies like this. Several variables and possible problems have come up, and here are just a few that I have observed:
- Sometimes, kids get bored: This study will last 8 weeks, and every week each kid will do the same activities, either with a dog or with a proxy. However, even though it is only the first week of the study, some of the kids already showed signs of boredom with some of the activities. We anticipated that each activity would last approximately 5 minutes, but some activities have lasted only a couple minutes. In addition, the kids may learn how to do the activities better throughout the next few weeks, which could lead to the activities taking less time and skewed data. We are currently brainstorming ways to prevent boredom, so hopefully we'll come up with a way to solve this issue.
- Every dog is different: Some of the dogs we have worked with are very engaged and friendly, whereas others are easily distracted and less engaged. Because of this, the dogs' ability to participate in each activity could impact the kids' responses. As I mentioned in my previous post, the dogs' behaviors are variables that we cannot entirely account for.
- Pets at home?: The presence of pets at the kids' homes could impact their behaviors with these therapeutic dogs. Some kids might be more comfortable with dogs than others, and this could affect their behaviors throughout the study.
- Parents in the room: The children's parent(s) are usually in the room during each session, and this could either positively or negatively impact each child's behavior. Some kids might behave and respond better because they know their parents are watching, while others may act out for the same reason.
In conclusion, there are some variables that we may have to eventually account for. However, this is a pilot study, so we are hoping to fix these flaws in any future studies that are conducted. Thank you for reading!
Swati :)
[1] Esposito, L., McCune, S., Griffin, J. A., & Maholmes, V. "Directions in human-animal interaction research: Child development, health, and therapeutic interventions." Child Development Perspectives. 5.3 (2011): 205-211. Print
No comments:
Post a Comment