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This course is a written transcript of the live event, “Introduction to Animal Assisted Intervention in SLP”, presented by Sheila Bernstein on October 10, 2011.
>> Amy Hansen: Welcome, everybody, to today's expert seminar, “Introduction to Animal-Assisted Intervention in Speech-Language Pathology” by Dr. Sheila Bernstein. I'm Amy Hansen and I'll be your moderator for this online course. It is very much an honor to introduce Dr. Sheila Bernstein this afternoon. Dr. Sheila Bernstein has over 25 years’ experience as a pediatric SLP. She holds ASHA board recognition as a specialist in child language and the bilingual extension to the NYS Teacher of Speech and Hearing Handicap certification. She maintains a private practice in New York City, and is affiliated with various intervention agencies, conducting evaluations and providing in-service training to professional staff on bilingual issues, language and feeding assessment of infants, toddlers and preschoolers, and approaches to parent involvement. Dr. Bernstein is an Associate Professor in the graduate program at Touro College, and is an Adjunct Professor at Hofstra University. Her research focuses on the beneficial effects of involving therapy dogs in speech-language interventions with young children. She often includes her therapy dog Maggie Mae in her sessions, and Dr. Bernstein has presented her research at state and national conventions. So welcome, Sheila, and thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us today.
[Applause]
>> Sheila Bernstein: Good afternoon and thank you for coming. I would just like to start by saying that this is a new and very exciting area for speech-language pathologists. Now, I do know that people are including animals and, in particular, dogs in their therapy and doing visiting. Do we have anyone who has experience either using their own therapy dog or inviting therapy dogs to participate in their program or participate in their therapy? Let's begin.
Introduction
I'm not really going to spend a lot of time going through some of the research; I'm going to talk about the pertinent research. We are all aware of the bond between animals and humans, which really goes back to prehistoric times. We've all heard of the cave paintings, that the Egyptians buried their cats, and the Egyptians had dogs as well. Some of the dog breeds we know are thousands of years old, and dogs have been used really continuously. In recent years, animal-assisted therapy has been incorporated in the field of psychology and medicine to enhance patient care. It has been introduced in hospitals; medical benefits are well documented. I have given you a pretty extensive reference list that you can go through some of this, and there is still more out there.
What we're going to do in this introduction is learn about animal-assisted therapy definitions of the terminology, a quick review of the research and then requirements for handler, dog and clinician, how to select clients, selecting teams, liability, and an overview of implementing animal-assisted therapy in speech and language interventions.
Definition of Terminology
Animal-Assisted Therapy
Animal-Assisted Therapy (AAT) is a goal-directed intervention. It's directed or delivered by a health/human service professional with specialized expertise within their scope of professional practice. That is the Delta Society definition.
What does that mean to us? That the animal is included in the speech-language therapy with a licensed certified speech-language pathologist who either is the trained dog handler as well – the dog is their dog – or, there is a handler and a certified therapy dog participating with them. We'll talk more about that later. Animal-assisted therapy is designed to promote improvement in human physical, emotional, social, and other cognitive functioning.
Again, back to their definition, certainly that is very well in line with what we do, understanding that in animal-assisted therapy, the animal is part of the therapy. It is a tool or, I like to say, another material, and I think of a funny story with one of my grad students. When we were doing some research, and I assigned her to read one of the articles that we'll discuss where a study was done with an aphasic individual, she said, “Oh, I read that article, but the dog didn't do anything. The dog didn't do therapy. The dog was just a dog.” Well, yes. The dogs are just dogs, they’re not the therapists. They assist the therapists. It’s a significant part of the treatment for many people who have challenges. In animal-assisted therapy, or AAT, the client-specific goals for each session are written just as we do in any other intervention. We document it like any other therapy. We have scheduled visits, set intervals – it’s just therapy.
Animal-Assisted Activities
I want to differentiate ATT from AAA, or Animal-Assisted Activities. This is basically the visiting dogs that you hear about - people taking their dog to a hospital when they visit people. People call it animal-assisted therapy, but it is really not therapy, it is just visiting the dog. There are benefits. Certainly people feel better and enjoy having the dog come, but there is nothing really planned. The same activity can be repeated with many people, unlike AAT, which is tailored to the particular person or their condition or the particular group. The visiting programs or the reading programs you hear about where handlers and dogs go into the school and the child sits with the dog and the child reads to the dog are considered AAA, the casual meet and greet. There are no specific treatment goals, the same activity is used, the visit can be as long or short as desired, notes are not taken and the contact is spontaneous.
Pet Therapy
Pet therapy is a term that is inaccurate and misleading, as again, in the story with my graduate student, we're not doing therapy on the pet and the pet is not doing the therapy. There are some other terms flitting around like “pet–facilitated therapy” and “animal-facilitated therapy,” which are really both AAA and AAT.
Service Animals
A service dog is defined clearly in the ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act. A dog is considered a “service dog” if it has been “individually trained to work or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability.” As I'm sure you're all familiar, the disabilities are laid out in the ADA, and to be considered a service dog, the animal must be trained to perform tasks directly related to the person's disability. We're all familiar with guide dogs for the blind, and hearing dogs, and mobility dogs; these are service dogs. They're also using miniature horses and monkeys and other animals as service animals.
What is the difference between all these different animals? Service dogs are legally defined in the ADA. Federal Laws protect the rights of individuals with disabilities to be accompanied by their service animals in public places. They're not pets. This includes psychiatric service dogs. The animals work for the client.
