The Effects Of Animal Based Therapy Practices On Clients Who Have Nonfluent Aphasia Therapy

A key factor to most of the maladaptive behavior performed by individuals is the inability to get a message across for their wants and needs through language. A few of my clients were non-speaking when I first met them. Their way of communicating was by whining or directing their caregiver to the item he or she needed. Consequently, many of the client’s goals were focused on increasing communicative language. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend speech therapy with one of my clients. Being present in these therapies, I was able to learn certain techniques to increase language, as well as techniques for phonetics, to be able to understand the existing language the client had. On days the client did not have speech therapy, I implemented the programs into the in-home therapies to increase the exposure, in hopes for better results. I also utilized the skills I learned on the other non-speaking clients I worked with but, modified their usage to adapt to the necessity of each

One of the main reasons that Animal Assisted Therapy is so important and beneficial is because it has been proven to lower blood pressure in adults and adolescents. After spending just 12 minutes with a therapy animal, a study showed that the adults participating in this project experienced a drop in numbers of their blood pressure. The adults also reported that they had a 24 percent decrease in their anxiety levels. Researchers also proved that the harmful toxins in the subjects’ bodies decreased by a very significant amount

In the field of therapy, there are numerous of therapy available out there for different type of individuals and situations as well. There is one type of therapy that usually contains people and animal, it is animal-assisted therapy is a therapeutic approach that brings animals and individuals with physical and/or emotional needs together to perform the therapy. Animal-assisted therapy tend to be focused on individuals either children or elderly for them to be able to connect with the animal thus feeling comfortable talking with the therapist. Pet therapy works for all ages, whether sick or not (Lanchnit, 2011). Although, this paper, most of the focus is on animal-assisted therapy towards children using dogs.

Animal Assisted Therapy also known as animal-assisted therapy has been formally introduced to the world in the last ten years or so. Although animals have always been a place of comfort for a lot of people, scientists just began to realize the impact animals have on society. The world has begun to experiment with what animals can do to benefit human health. The most common type of animal-assisted therapy is equine-assisted therapy. Equines are horses. Equine-assisted therapy 's impact on minors who have mental health issues have led to a successful new type of therapy that includes multiple benefits. Equine-assisted therapy has worked well in is treating adolescents and children how to communicate and connect with others. Two big issues that animal-assisted therapy has been known to help is Autism and kids with attachment and social problems.

Speech and language therapy helps provide children, young people and their families with life changing treatments and support. Speech and language therapy can provide a wide range of help the services are mainly known for helping children and young people with communication problems but they also help children and young people that have problems eating, drinking and swallowing. Using specialist skills, the speech and language therapy work directly with clients and their careers and help develop tailored support that suits their individual needs. These therapists work alongside teachers and other health professionals, such as doctors and nurses the people that benefit from speech and language therapy range from all ages.

AAT has also been used to help children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Animals are a way for children to focus on the task at hand and apply themselves to what they are doing. AAT has been proven to help children with developmental disabilities such as down-syndrome, ADHD, DCD, and visual impairments (Ratliffe and Sanekane 36). AAT is clinically proven to benefit people of many different backgrounds and problems. The animals seem to have a special connection with the humans that seem to improve many things involving the child’s disability. It has also been proven to help children who are, for the most part, non-verbal. It allows these children to talk about something about which they know a great deal about and are comfortable with conversations talking about animals. Hence, AAT has been able to treat a wide variety of disabilities and problems with a myriad of success in treating the problems at

For centuries people have known that animal companionship has brought many benefits to people’s lives. According to Kathryn Heimlich, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the first known time a companion animal was used to aid in a therapy program was “York Retreat in England, an establishment founded by the Quakers for persons with mental illness” (Heimlich, 2001, p. 48). As stated by Heimlich, the first published reports of the benefits of animal-assisted therapy come from Psychologist Boris Levinson. Levinson “discovered that he could reach a disturbed child during therapy

and C.I.L.T., was obtained via a variety of search engines and databases. The SUNY New Paltz Sojourner Truth Library online database yielded several articles, specifically through the CommDisDome research database. Other databases that were accessed for the purpose of finding scholarly, peer reviewed articles included: PubMed Medline, JSLHR, ASHA, EBSCOhost, Google scholar, and speechbite. General search terms that were key throughout the search process included: P.A.C.E, C.I.L.T., treatment, therapy, aphasia, “controlled trial”, random, and systematic. Once a systematic review for the C.I.L.T. approach was obtained via Cherney, Patterson, Raymer, Frymark, and Schooling (2008), many sources were extrapolated from the references section in order to provide information and/or support for the alternative therapy. The original searches yielded 24 articles. Upon further investigation of the

Questions arise concerning the treatment of therapy dogs when visiting patients and whether animal-assisted therapy really works at all; however, those who disagree aren’t looking at the big picture. Animal-assisted therapy is both an ethical and effective therapy method due to its success in treating those with chronic diseases, disorders, and managing stress and anxiety. The varieties of cases regarding the success of therapy dog treatments far surmount the amount of cases saying otherwise. Animal-assisted therapy stems from the human-animal connection, one of the most unique and powerful bonds man has ever experienced. It is that connection that allows animal assisted therapy to be a critical part of everyone’s daily

The participation model begins by identifying the participation patterns and communication needs where the clinician then identifies participation barriers (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013, p. 108). SLP’s are then taught to differentiate between assessing opportunity barriers and assessing access barriers in the concept that the working clinician evaluates policy, practice, facilitator skill, facilitator knowledge, attitude, and current communication (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013, p. 108). The client’s current communication assessment includes a full assessment of their possible potential to increase natural abilities, an assessment of potential environmental adaptations, and an assessment of the potential to utilize AAC systems or devices (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013, p. 108). Once there has been a thorough analysis the speech language pathologist should plan and implement interventions that will span across the present and the future with a follow up to determine how effective the intervention has been in advancing a client’s participation (Beukelman & Mirenda, 2013, p.

Another concern for the use of animals in occupational therapy is how the therapist will obtain therapy animals (Cipriani et al., 2013, p. 215). If no suitable animals are immediately available from other sources, the cost of the therapist obtaining, training, and certifying their own therapy animal is not insignificant. However, if an animal is available from another source, whether it be a volunteer or an organization, proper investigation must be done to determine the reliability and legitimacy of the provider and of the therapy animal. Winkle suggests that appropriate therapy animals can be obtained from organizations that train professional assistance animals. Although therapy animals require different skills than assistance animals are trained for, much of the intermediate training and skills are the same (Winkle, 2012, p. 11).

The 2015 National Standards Report on autism states that AAT is an unestablished intervention for individuals under the age of 22, which means that there is little or no support on its effectiveness. They find that there is “no way to rule out the possibility that these interventions are ineffective or harmful” (National Autism Center, 2015, p. 74). Despite this report, numerous parents are asserting that this therapy was beneficial for their child’s social competencies, physical safety, or sensory experience. More quality research is needed to determine if animal-assisted interventions are effective because families are spending substantial amounts of time and money on animal-based interventions in the place of more evidence-based practices. According to Autism Service Dogs of America (2010), a fundraising goal of $13,500 for each service animal is required, which is invested in the dog’s training, housing, and breeding, which usually totals around $20,000. After the dog enters the family, there are continuous training sessions. According to the Autism Spectrum Disorder Foundation (2012), families can end up spending $5,000 annually and countless hours on equine-assisted therapy. With considerable amounts of time and money being invested in these interventions, more research must be performed on the efficacy of these

Autistic children and even autistic adults often have meltdowns, outbursts, stress, and sometimes even as bad of symptoms as depression over the course of their life. Many parents with autistic children have tried multiple types of therapy, and often wonder if animal therapy would be a better path for their family. When trying assisted animal therapy for the first time, parents in every study I read about noticed that their child was calmer, more alert, and had an overall decrease in the amount of outbursts and meltdowns in a day. One family that was spoke about in the book Animal-assisted Interventions for Individuals with Autism, known as the Weiss family, had a very positive experience when they purchased their child a service animal. The

Every single year, millions of children test below state and national education standards. The relationship developed between humans and animals in an educational setting prove to be beneficial in emotional stability and goal-oriented support. The animals provide an environment that is judgement free, as well as, encouraging and supportive. Research has proven that animal assisted therapy, overall, reduces blood pressure, heart rate and reduction of stress-related hormones.2,4 The dogs used in Animal Assisted Therapy are certified through various National Organizations and have a predetermined number of location visits prior to receiving certification. The research that has been conducted shows a significant correlation of elementary students between improved reading letter grade and time spent reading to an animal assisted therapy dog. The purpose of this study is to determine if canine assisted therapy improves elementary scores in all subject matter.

I think that the Goerlich community itself could do more to benefit from cypress and should try to engage him more with a structured program in order to get the most out of him being at the facility. Additional client outcomes you could expect from this program is increased self of independence and self esteem if you are giving the clients a sense of role to play and allow them to feel needed by taking care of the dog. Taking care of the dog could include the simple task of feeding him everyday or even brushing him. Other outcomes could include an increase in sense of companionship and decrease in loneliness and increased social interaction. Based off of this study as well as my own experience of living with a dog my entire life, I believe that AAT intervention is a worthy program for a client to participate in. I believe that this is a worthy program as in short it can show an increase in overall quality of life. Although AAT could be used in other professions for practice with ADL’s outcomes specific to this program outcomes we would see as RT’s could include those in addition to increase in self esteem and the feeling of needing to be