{"id":1537,"date":"2020-01-10T10:14:25","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T10:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/?p=1537"},"modified":"2022-07-26T06:43:41","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T06:43:41","slug":"benefits-of-animal-assisted-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/benefits-of-animal-assisted-therapy\/","title":{"rendered":"Benefits Of Animal-assisted Therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Humans and animals share a loving bond. Keeping a dog, cat or even a guinea pig at home assist in tackling loneliness, stress, and health issues in people. An\u00a0<\/span><strong>animal-assisted therapy for autism<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0help children as well as adults on the spectrum to revive their lost social functioning and communication abilities and also in controlling their outbursts and depression.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Animal-assisted Therapy<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Animal-assisted therapy for autism involves therapists who have trained pets for providing joy along with the treatment of autism. They involve a range of animals in the therapy such as dogs (canine-assisted therapy), horses (equine-assisted therapy), guinea pigs, birds or even a dolphin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stress-related health problems including depression and anxiety are common in individuals with autism. These problems are associated with poor health, aggressiveness, and difficulties in maintaining a pleasant communication and social interaction. Thus, one of the\u00a0<\/span><strong>benefits of animal assisted therapy for autism<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0is to reduce stress-related outcomes in order to improve social interaction in individuals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Various Benefits<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Individuals, especially children, are attracted to animals. They tend to bond strongly with their pets and also enjoy interacting with them. This bonding is because of unconditional love and a sense of companionship.\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/how-animal-assisted-therapy-for-autism-can-help-children-with-autism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Animal assisted therapy for autism<\/strong><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0with different animals is a psychological intervention beneficial for many reasons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dogs and horses are the most common pets used in animal-assisted therapy. Dogs are trained to assist individuals with an autism spectrum disorder. They help in improving their communication skills, love them unconditionally and make them feel safe in many situations. They can also provide comfort throughout stressful moments when others fail to understand what they want to convey.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of the\u00a0<\/span><strong>benefits of animal assisted therapy,\u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as a valuable intervention tool for autism are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Positive attitude and motivation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Animals can help individuals in gaining focus and stay attentive during the intervention. Children and adults with autism tend to maintain a steady gaze on the face of animals longer than they did before.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Individuals learn to engage socially. They smile and interact socially when these animals are present.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Individuals with autism are easy victims of abuse and bullying. These issues are of great concern as they are likely to experience stress and retreat into solitude. Moreover, a dog as a companion is a safe feeling.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thus, an animal-assisted intervention eliminates the feeling of loneliness and provides a stress-free experience to individuals.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For those with verbalize or non-verbalize emotions, being in contact with animals provide a source of confidence. Exploring various types of animal-assisted therapies opens new ways of helping people deal with neurological disorders and health issues. This can lead to more positive outcomes and a quick way towards recovery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Parents can keep a pet at home to keep children active and happy. It is also advisable to ensure that they do not have any allergy to animals before including a pet member in their home.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0To gather more information about animal-assisted therapy, visit this\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/standard-treatments\/complimentary\/animal-assisted-therapy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">link<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Humans and animals share a loving bond. Keeping a dog, cat or even a guinea pig at home assist in tackling loneliness, stress, and health issues in people. An\u00a0animal-assisted therapy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[145,295,296,11,78,224,293],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1539,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537\/revisions\/1539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.autismconnect.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}