Abstract:

The present study compared effects on students with emotional and behavioral disorders participating in Animal-Assisted Therapy to similar students participating in traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy. The Youth Self Report, Teacher Report Form, School Daily Point System, and Adolescent Psychopathology Scale-Short Form were administered before and after the study to measure changes in emotional, behavioral, and DSM-IV-TR oriented symptoms. One-tailed dependent t-tests were conducted on these measures to compare the mean difference scores within groups to assess for changes in behavior from the beginning to the end of the study. One-tailed independent t-tests were conducted to compare the mean difference scores on these measures for participants in the Animal-Assisted Therapy group to participants in the traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy group.

The results yielded significance for changes in behavior from the beginning to the end of the study on the Teacher Report Form for both groups. However, neither group improved significantly more than the other on any of the measures. Anecdotal post-treatment interviews indicated that participants experienced positive effects from interacting with a therapy dog at school. Results indicated that school staff rated both Animal-Assisted Therapy and traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy as improving symptoms among emotionally and behaviorally disordered students. However, Animal-Assisted Therapy did not appear to have empirically-supported greater effects on these symptoms than traditional cognitive-behavioral therapy. Limitations of the research included the small sample size and the improper conduct of the study procedure.