Abstract
The focus question for this Critically Appraised Topic (CAT) was created in effort to investigate the effectiveness of animal-assisted occupational therapy on improvements in social participation for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASD is a developmental disability that presents challenges in social, behavioral, emotional, and communication skills which impact overall occupational performance (CDC, 2020). According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 54 children were diagnosed with ASD in 2016. The prevalence of ASD diagnoses also increased by 10% between 2014 and 2016, and continues to rise due to increased awareness and education surrounding ASD (CDC, 2020). This rise in diagnoses and awareness of children with ASD creates a need for greater access to efficient and research-based interventions to assist and promote healthy childhood development for this population. One of these methods is the use of animal-assisted therapy with concurrent occupational therapy services to address children with ASD’s social participation and communication by purposefully interacting with the animal. This CAT synthesized three Level I evidence studies and two Level III evidence studies to assess the effectiveness of animal assisted therapy, and the strength of evidence supporting this method of intervention when creating therapeutic intervention plans for children with ASD. In summary, this CAT identified improvements in social participation outcome measures, which supports the use of animals in conjunction with traditional occupational services to increase social participation and on-task behaviors in relation to goal attainment. However, the data collected was statistically insignificant, and researchers concluded that additional research is required to determine the effectiveness of OT interventions with animal-assisted therapy.|Reference: Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2020). Data & statistics on autism spectrum disorder. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html