Gryffin our live therapy Canine and I
Author: Claire Little | Major: Nursing | Semester: Fall 2024
My name is Claire Little, and I am a Nursing student in the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing. My mentor’s name is Dr. Michele Kilmer, and she is involved in the Nursing Department. We have been researching during the Spring Semester of 2024 and Fall of 2024.
Our research involved using a trained service dog during therapy sessions for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We compared these sessions to ones where we provide a stuffed dog instead of the trained service dog to observe the impact of Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) on their prosocial behavior. This is important research because children diagnosed with ASD may struggle with prosocial behaviors. Animals, especially dogs, are typically less complicated for children to read and understand. Therefore, in theory they are more likely to interact with the dog rather than the handler/therapist and the animal’s presence would increase the child’s prosocial behavior. This was proven by our research, with children in the live canine group showing higher levels of human animal interaction, social communication, environmental interactions, and verbalizations. The children also showed fewer negative behaviors and more positive.
I found my mentor through Nursing Science Day. I attended it in Spring of 2023 and connected with Dr. Kilmer because I was very interested in her research with children at risk for having ASD and canine behavior, two things I am passionate about. This idea was created by Dr. Kilmer and Dr. Temple Grandin, a renowned researcher that has been diagnosed with ASD and studies animal behavior. They recognized the importance of this research because there is far too little research on the impact of AAT on Children with ASD when it is something that could be so important to the success and development of these children.
During my research I learned so much about ASD and how it can be presented in different children. Every child is different and learning about how ASD may impact them has been eye opening. I also learned about AAT and how helpful animals can be. It has been so interesting learning about just how in tune dogs are with our emotions, and that they can sense shifts in feelings and moods just with their nose, before the person themself notices. A slight challenge to our research is that our dog Gryffin is still young and is very high energy. This makes it slightly more difficult to have him focus on tasks. We have managed to overcome this by exercising him regularly and always practicing his commands and behavior with him. He is high drive and aims to please, so he is always fun to work with.
My faculty member Dr. Kilmer conducts the therapy session and is Gryffin’s handler. She gathered the research through recordings of the sessions and me along with two other students, Caroline Kilo and Delaney Piantanida, watched these videos and code data of the dog and child’s behaviors throughout the session. Caroline, Delaney, and I all worked with Gryffin on his skills and behavior as well. After coding all the videos and analyzing our results, it was found that there is a large positive impact on emotional regulation and prosocial behavior when using the live therapy canine. We wrote our thesis based off of this research and successfully defended it in December of 2024!