Summary The article written by Pendry, Smith & Roeter (2014) discusses the effects of equine facilitated learning on adolescents’ basal cortisol levels. In healthy adolescents, basal cortisol levels were highest in the morning and dropped rapidly throughout the day with troughs around midnight. Although equine involved programs have become increasingly popular over the last decade, prior to this article no research has been published on the effects that horses have on human development and emotional wellbeing. The experiment was conducted over an eleven-week period with students from different schools, fifth through eighth grade, in a rural university town in the Pacific Northwest area of the United States (Pendry et al., 2014). Subject referrals came from school counselors who had been treating students for academic and/or behavioral issues. The group of students participating included forty-one males and seventy-two females with an average age of eleven years. Participants were predominantly Caucasian or Hispanic. The students were randomly divided into two groups with fifty-three assigned to experimental conditions and sixty assigned to waitlisted conditions. The independent variable in this experiment is participation in the eleven-week program. The dependent variable would be the children that were waitlisted. The research was conducted through survey and experiment conditions (King L. A., 2014). Parents of the participants were asked to fill out several questions
* Children are more likely to participate in play and learning activities if they are secure emotionally
Alper, L. S. (1993). The Child-Pet Bond. Progress in Self Psychology, 9, 257-270. Retrieved March 13, 2014, from the Progress in Self Psychology database.
More than 20 years ago, an ordinary middle-aged man working in the insurance industry, getting ready to retire from his job, was shopping at his local grocery store. In the grocery store parking lot, an unlikely encounter with a girl named Stacy changed his life. Stacy had cerebral palsy, making her unable to talk or hear. That's when Swimmer got the idea, "what might happen if I put her on a horse?" Stacey soon later visited Swimmer at his farm in outside Charlotte, North Carolina, where Stacy was able to ride a pony for the first time. "She lit up like a candle," said Swimmer, and that's when I knew what I wanted to do. Today Swimmer has helped over 800 kids with disabilities through his equine-assisted therapy program from his organization
Stress is a massive struggle for many students in school. The solution is allowing dogs in school. In schools, students grades are lower due to stress over tests, assignments, and homework. If students could bring their dogs to school, the stressed children's grades would improve. It has been proven that petting a dog will relives stress, which would help grades increase. Business insider.com stated, “Petting your dog stops your body making cortisone, or the stress hormone, so the student will be able to think more clear.” (Business insider 1)Then, according to The Ohio State University studies, “ 7 out of 10 students are too stressed out, so there grades drop. Stress is a big part in tests, and if stress is not controlled, it is harder to think and harder to focus.” (Ohio State 3) This is a big reason, why students should be allowed to bring their dogs to school. In contrast, an antagonist of this cause say that dogs might relieve stress for some kids, but some
She then talks about study results of the program to demonstrate its effectiveness and benefits. Because there was a 60 increase in optimism in the class she was describing, she refers to it as "the optimistic classroom." Along those lines, aggression remarkably decreased, students were getting along better, and there was a drop in the rate of absenteeism. In addition, there were striking results involving the cortisol levels of participants. Children that were part of the MindUP program showed the ability to manage their cortisol levels, while the control group could not. Since cortisol is a stress hormone, this finding could have far-reaching effects in not only education, but in health care as well. Finally, a study showed that MindUP children
Throughout life, both children and adults experience varying amounts of stress in their everyday lives. For the most part, this has been proven to be healthy and crucial in strengthening their response to such stimuli later in life. This paper will focus on the findings of various studies in which researchers have found links between stress exposure and childhood development. Specifically, this paper will focus on the effects of what is known as toxic stress and its effects on the development of a child and its role in the development of mental disorders as the child transitions into adulthood.
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.
Imagine you're in school and a cute little puppy comes up to you during an important test. You can't resist but to pet the cute puppy. Little do you know that a dog can reduce your stress levels dramatically. You ended up doing better on her school test than the other classroomes without the puppy. In other words that puppy saved the day for a bad grade! An animal can realise an anti stress hormone in your body, which causes you to have less stress. This is why animals should be able to be in the classroom.
My college education would help me a great deal to achieve my future goals, by majoring in equine management I would fulfill by dream of working with horses for the rest of my life. It would also help me by having a business background, because I have seen many barns go under due to low funds. After college I see myself owning or managing a barn, giving lessons, riding my own horse, and instilling the passion I have for horses into others. Having a degree in equine management would help me impact the world. Horses are such gentle and comforting animals that brought me comfort when my dad died. I would like to share those amazing qualities by taking a miniature horse around to hospitals and senior centers and showing all those people how wonderful
Pets provide a sense of comfort and purpose in their owner’s life (Bennett). Humans have the basic need to touch, thus, when a person strokes an animal, blood pressure lowers and leaves that person feeling more calmed and less stressed (Robinson and Segal), though researchers believe that cats have a more calming effect on people than other animals do (WebMD). Giving a child a pet is very effective in helping them develop basic motor and social skills, a sense of responsibility, compassion, empathy, stimulate imagination, creativity, curiosity, and even make them feel better about themselves. Furthermore, both children and adults alike become more active when having a pet for a companion (Robinson and Segal). “Horseback riding gives stretching exercise, and helps at regaining balance and building core strength” (WebMD). While multiple studies have shown that walking one’s dog, grooming, and even petting boosts fitness, also counting as weight-loss, strengthens the heart, muscles, immune system, and bones, while improving blood circulation, boosting energy, and slowing the loss of bone tissue (WebMD; Robinson and Segal; Humane Society of the United States) “People who have pets tend to have better levels of cholesterol, cortisol, and triglyceride” (WebMD), moreover, “playing with a dog or cat can elevate levels serotonin and dopamine, which calm and relax” (Robinson and Segal). “In 2001, a study
Across the childhood age groups, there are some identified similarities as well as differences found in the Gordon’s 11 functional health patterns assessment. Safety is a concern for all age groups. Their environments greatly affect how they grow and who they become later in life. All of the pressure they face in their lives are all linked directly to their family’s religion, culture and its values and beliefs. The toddlers and preschoolers show similarities in the pattern of coping and dealing with stressors by throwing temper tantrums when they are not getting their way, or not able to deal with stress that has presented itself to the child. Another example of a similarity would be role relationship patterns of preschoolers and school-aged children. They both enjoy the company of other children, sometimes more than that of family members. Although, family is very important to all of them, the school-aged children care a lot about what their peers
A study preformed by Lansade tested long and short-term effects of imprint training on foal management, learning ability, and reactivity. There were a total of 26 welsh pony foals that were tested; 13 handled every day up to 14 days from birth and 13 foals that were not handled as control (Lansade, 2004). The handling in this study included patting each part of the foal’s body, picking up feet, putting on an halter, and leading the foal over 40 meters (Lansade, 2004). Then the foals were tested for manageability and reactivity at two days, 3 months, 6 months and 1
“without sufficient opportunities to work off excess energy, any child...will be frustrated and fractious.” (2007, p53)
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.
A student working at the University of Minnesota undertook a study and survey to determine the effect of stress and tension in adolescents.