{"id":1171,"date":"2015-05-15T17:58:22","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T17:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/?p=1171"},"modified":"2015-05-15T20:13:12","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T20:13:12","slug":"animal-assisted-therapy-a-big-win-for-kids-and-the-dogs-like-it-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/human-animal-bond\/animal-assisted-therapy-a-big-win-for-kids-and-the-dogs-like-it-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal-assisted therapy: a big win for kids (and the dogs like it, too!)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a little something that will be a surprise to hardly any animal lover: animal-assisted therapy (AAT) can be a big contributor to positive results in treatment for\u00a0physical, social, emotional, or cognitive problems in children<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It has\u00a0already been documented that adults will see a reduction of anxiety and pain severity with AAT, and there is a ton of anecdotal evidence to support the benefits of animal visitations with children suffering from physical or mental trauma, though we still have a ways to go in collecting and measuring the results.<\/p>\n

But so far we do<\/em>\u00a0know that hospitalized children are more independent, have better appetites, pain reduction, and less fear of their experience\/treatment. Some children with autism have shown remarkable improvement in the presence of\u00a0a therapy dog, as well.<\/p>\n

And, like many working animals,\u00a0therapy dogs\u00a0love<\/em> their work. They couldn’t be happier around their people: the attention, the fawning, the petting — what a tough\u00a0“job” to have! Talk about a mutually beneficial arrangement!<\/p>\n

Animal-assisted therapy is an example of the human-animal bond at its finest — a growing field of study we can count on to yield even more benefits as it is further explored.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Girl

Kids and dogs are a natural fit — how perfect is is that dogs can help children cope with illness and the recovery process?<\/center><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Animal-assisted therapy is an example of the human-animal bond at its finest — a growing field of study we can count on to yield even more benefits as it is further explored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions\/1180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naiaonline.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}