Oral Presentation The International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ): 27th Annual Conference 2018

Animal-assisted interventions in child literacy programs. (#91)

Deborah E Linder 1 , Melissa Orkin 2 , Elyssa Brand 2
  1. Tufts Institute for Human-Animal Interaction, North Grafton, MA, United States
  2. Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University, Medford, MA, United States

Introduction: In 2015, almost two-thirds of fourth grade students in US public schools did not meet benchmarks for proficient reading (US Dept of Education, 2003). A recent systematic review highlights the potential for animal-assisted interventions (AAI) in literacy programs to favorably impact anxiety, engagement, and reading skills for children (Hall et al., 2016). Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the impact of adding AAI to standard instruction of an intensive four-week remedial summer reading program.

Methodology: Children (n = 30) aged 7-11 were enrolled if reading at least six months below grade level. All participants received standard remedial reading instruction during the four-week half day summer reading program. During eight read-aloud sessions (twice weekly for four weeks), the control group (n = 15) read aloud by themselves (current standard) and the AAI group (n = 15) read aloud to a registered therapy dog. Self-report data as well as objective data was measured for three outcomes: anxiety (self-report survey and physiologic measurement), engagement (observation of on-task behavior and self-report motivation), and reading skills (standardized reading measures).

Main Results: Preliminary results using paired t-tests revealed that the AAI group had a significantly higher mean percentage of time engaged in on-task behaviors while reading aloud (95.7%) compared to the control group (54.1%), t(28) = -6.21, p < .0001. The mean differences between baseline and week four was not significantly different between the AAI group and the control group for self-reported motivation, t(28) = .38, p = .71, nor self-reported anxiety t(28) = -.09, p = .93.

Principal Conclusions and Implications for Field: This project demonstrated feasibility of a safe and effective AAI, as well as improved on-task engagement for reading aloud within a remedial literacy program. Future studies can improve optimization of the AAI program for specific populations and specific reading disabilities to determine which populations are best suited for AAI-based literacy programs.

  1. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy. 2003. Available: http://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp.
  2. Hall SS, Gee NR, Mills DS. Children reading to dogs: a systematic review of the literature. PloS one. 2016;11(2):e0149759.