Canine-assisted reading programs for children with special educational needs: rationale and recommendations for the use of dogs in assisting learning

Effect of a Canine-Assisted Read Aloud Intervention on Reading Ability and Physiological Response: A Pilot Study

“…In the reading sessions, Pearl Pearl played as a non-judgmental audience. As Fung [6] stated, the trained dog could provide the children with a sense of greater capability and accomplishment. While the child-centered approach further helps to cultivate a relaxing reading aloud environment, it may not be effective to improve reading accuracy in a brief intervention.…”

“…The canine was a non-judgmental audience and a comforting companion for the child. The dog handler acted as an active listener [6]. In each 20-min session, the first five minutes were scheduled as free time for interactions between the child, the dog and the handler.…”

“…In recent decades, a growing body of evidence has shown the positive effects of animal-assisted education (AAE), which is a form of animal-assisted intervention (AAI), in enhancing humane values [1,2] and reading skills and attitudes [3,4,5]. Amongst the AAE programs, canine-assisted read-aloud programs seem to have become the most prevalent ones in schools in the past two decades [6,7]. A canine-assisted read-aloud program is actually a visitation program in which a handler brings a trained therapy dog to school to work with students for reading aloud.…”

“…During the reading process, the trained canine is a non-judgmental audience who does not comment on or interfere with children’s reading performance. It is a comforting companion who can help build a safe and warm environment for children to read aloud [6]. To children, reading to a calm, non-judgmental and well-trained canine companion might make the reading process and practice less stressful [15,16,17] and even more enjoyable [19].…”

An Observational Study on Canine-assisted Play Therapy for Children with Autism: Move towards the Phrase of Manualization and Protocol Development

“…The many possibilities for utilizing canines in different play contexts and different settings make CAPT more difficult than THR to establish as a standardized intervention for ASD populations. However, trained canines, who are non-judgmental audiences, speech elicitors, younger siblings, and comfort companions (Fung, 2016), make CAPT an interactive intervention that had been evidenced as initial efficacy treatment for children with ASD (for example, Redefer & Goodman, 1989;Fung & Leung, 2014). As suggested by Smith et al, (2007) a decade ago, the priorities in ASD research should include initial efficacy studies on interventions for core features of ASD, such as social reciprocity and preparation for efficacy and effectiveness trials, by developing manuals for interventions that have shown promise.…”