The development and evaluation of a novel Cat Assisted Training (CAT) intervention for youth with developmental disabilities and their family cat

针对发育障碍青少年及其家猫的新型猫辅助训练 (CAT) 干预措施的开发和评估

• 批准号: 10703242
• 负责人: Megan I MacDonald
• 金额: $ 17.76万
• 依托单位: OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-10 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10703242
• 关键词: 12 year old; Address; Adolescent; Age; Aging; Animals; Area; Award; Behavior; Behavioral; Belief; Canis familiaris; Caregivers; Child; Companions; Data; Development; Developmental Disabilities; Diagnosis; Early Intervention; Educational Intervention; Emotional; Equity; Equus caballus; Evaluation; Evidence based practice; Exercise; Family; Feeling; Felis catus; Foundational Skills; Foundations; Frequencies; Fright; Goals; Grant; Health; Health Benefit; Health Promotion; Household; Human; Inequity; Intervention; Joints; Learning; Literature; Modeling; Nature; Parents; Participant; Personal Satisfaction; Persons; Physical activity; Populations at Risk; Positioning Attribute; Positive Reinforcements; Prevalence; Public Health; Research; Secure; Social Behavior; Social Interaction; Social Welfare; Social Well-Being; Social support; Stress; Supervision; Therapeutic; Training; Training Programs; United States National Institutes of Health; Walking; Work; Youth; autism spectrum disorder; body language; companion animal; comparative; cost; design; disability; early adolescence; efficacy evaluation; experience; improved; innovation; learned behavior; multidisciplinary; novel; participant retention; peer; physical inactivity; physically handicapped; programs; recruit; retention rate; skills; skills training; social; social anxiety; social relationships; social situation; social skills; socioeconomics; walking program; welfare

Project Summary/ Abstract This R21 application provides a multidisciplinary One Health approach to developing and evaluating a novel Cat Assisted Training (CAT) animal assisted intervention (AAI) for early adolescents with developmental disabilities (DD) and their family cat. The novel CAT intervention will be a 6-week cat walking and training program for youth 10 - 12 years old. Participants will learn how to respond appropriately to cat body language, practice fear-free and positive reinforcement-based handling, and training skills, and how to fit a harness and walk their cats on leash. For the human participants, skills and behaviors learned during the intervention are expected to promote and support long-term physical activity, social wellbeing, and lasting feelings of responsibility even after the intervention itself has concluded. We also expect these experiences to improve the relationship between the child participant and household cat, and in turn, reduce cat stress in the child’s presence and increase cat sociability and indicators of behavioral wellbeing. Because each child will participate with a cat already living in their household, this program will create a unique active partnership between child and cat that considers the health and wellbeing of both partners. Recent pilot work by PIs Udell & MacDonald has revealed physical and social-emotional improvements in children with and without developmental disabilities following a pet dog-partner based AAI. Dogs also showed increased sociability and attachment towards their child partner after AAI participation. Work by PI Udell & Vitale has demonstrated that many cats are highly social and form strong attachment bonds with humans, that cats can be successfully trained a wide range of behaviors, including leash walking, and that cat training classes result in high participant retention rates. Cat social behavior and welfare is also heavily influenced by human behavior and training, making it highly likely that cats would also benefit from this program. There remains a critical need for further empirical evaluation of AAI practices, especially those that target the specific needs of at-risk populations and youth. Further extending the development and evaluation of activity-based AAIs beyond those that include dogs and horses also helps address the critical need to consider and include diverse human participants, creating new equitable opportunities for AAI involvement to those who may have access to cats, but not dogs and horses (due to practical, health, cultural, socio-economic, or other personal reasons).

项目概要/摘要 该 R21 应用程序提供了一种多学科 One Health 方法来开发和评估一种新颖的 针对患有发育障碍的早期青少年的猫辅助训练 (CAT) 动物辅助干预 (AAI) 残疾 (DD) 及其家猫 新的 CAT 干预措施将是为期 6 周的遛猫和训练。 适合 10 - 12 岁青少年的计划，参与者将学习如何对猫的肢体语言做出适当的反应， 练习无恐惧和基于积极强化的处理和训练技能，以及如何安装安全带和 对于人类参与者来说，在干预过程中学到的技能和行为是有效的。 预期能够促进和支持长期的身体活动、社会福祉和持久的情感 即使干预本身已经结束，我们也希望这些经验能够改善我们的责任。 儿童参与者和家猫之间的关系，从而减少猫对孩子的压力 存在并增加猫的社交能力和行为健康指标，因为每个孩子都会。 与已经生活在家里的猫一起参与，该计划将建立一种独特的积极伙伴关系 PIs Udell 最近的试点工作考虑了儿童和猫之间的健康和福祉。 ＆麦克唐纳揭示了患有和不患有这种疾病的儿童的身体和社交情感方面的改善 基于 AAI 的宠物狗伴侣的发育障碍也表现出社交能力和能力的增强。 PI Udell 和 Vitale 的工作表明，在参与 AAI 后，他们对儿童伴侣的依恋。 许多猫具有高度的社会性，并与人类形成牢固的依恋关系，因此猫可以成功地 训练了各种各样的行为，包括牵绳行走，并且猫训练课程会导致高 参与者的保留率也很大程度上受到人类行为和福利的影响。 培训，使得猫也很可能从该计划中受益仍然迫切需要。 对 AAI 实践的进一步实证评估，特别是那些针对高危人群特定需求的实践 进一步扩大基于活动的 AAI 的开发和评估范围。 包括狗和马也有助于解决考虑和包容多样化人类的迫切需要 参与者，为那些可能接触到猫的人创造新的公平参与 AAI 的机会， 但狗和马则不然（由于实际、健康、文化、社会经济或其他个人原因）。