Honors student Emma Mitchell works with Gryffin, a 10-month-old black male lab, on ASL commands to prepare for research to explore the effects of animal-assisted therapy on prosocial behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder.
Author: Emma Mitchell | Major: Psychology | Semester: Spring 2022
My name is Emma Mitchell, and I am a Junior in the Fulbright College and Arts and Sciences. I am majoring in psychology with minors in human development & family sciences and agribusiness. I just finished my second semester in the Family and Community Intervention Lab under the guidance of Dr. Lauren Quetsch. In the future, I plan to attend law school to obtain my juris doctorate and work to advocate for better mental health services in rural America.
The Family and Community Intervention Lab focuses on adaptive treatments for children on the autism spectrum. Graduate and undergraduate students in the lab have the opportunity to explore a variety of research opportunities, including submitting posters to conferences and completing theses and dissertations. Members of the lab have a variety of interests, but we all work to further the literature in the area of adolescent autism research.
Currently, I am working to complete my Honors thesis under the guidance of Dr. Quetsch and Dr. Michelle Kilmer. Dr. Kilmer is a certified pediatric nurse practitioner and a professor in the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing (EMSON). Dr. Quetsch and Dr. Kilmer began working on a research project to explore the effects of animal-assisted therapy on prosocial behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder. Myself, along with three students from EMSON, were selected to work on this research project alongside Drs. Quetsch and Kilmer and together we make up Team Padfoot. The goal of our research project is to see if the presence of a service animal impacts the effectiveness of therapy for children with autism.
In October of 2021, Dr. Kilmer got an 11-week-old black male lab, with plans for us to begin training him in the Spring. When we returned to school in February, we began training the lab, who Dr. Kilmer had named Gryffin. Each of us undergraduate students set up a time to work with Gryffin for an hour each week. We started teaching him basic commands with the use of clicker training, which is rewarding Gryffin performing the correct command with the “click” sound of the clicker and a treat. He was a very fast learner, and soon he was learning more complex commands. One of the commands that he picked up quickly, and my favorite, is how to “hug” people. By the end of the semester, Gryffin was able to complete commands with the use of sign language by his trainer with the absence of a verbal command.
Other than training Gryffin, our team worked on submitting forms for IRB approval and our thesis proposal. Towards the end of the semester, our research project gained all the approval that we needed to begin our research. Dr. Kilmer will begin therapy sessions this summer, and we will continue them when we return in the fall. Once we are back in Fayetteville after the summer, we will code video sessions from the summer and participate in the therapy sessions that will occur during the fall, while working to complete our Honors thesis. To keep up with Gryffin and Team Padfoot follow us on Gryffin’s instagram @drpadfoot.