Exploring the impact of animal assisted therapy for preschool children with speech and language delay – A preliminary study

Not Applicable

Recruiting

• Conditions: language delay; speech delay; Physical Medicine / Rehabilitation - Speech therapy

• Registration Number: ACTRN12618001801202
• Lead Sponsor: a Trobe University

Brief Summary

Not available

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Results First Posted: 1900-01-01
• Study Start: 2018-11-05
• Last Update Posted: 15 July 2019

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 6

Inclusion Criteria

•Preschool age (no younger than 3 years) – this is the target age of study
•Diagnosis of speech and/or language delay – this is the target condition being treated
•English-speaking background

Exclusion Criteria

•Non-English-speaking background – this is to mitigate the influence of confounding variables given the nature of the condition being treated (English language)
•Global developmental delay/intellectual disability/other developmental disorder - There is currently only one published pilot study that has investigated AAT with children with language delay (Boyer & Mundschenk, 2016). Results from this study indicated that animal-assisted therapy produced best results when utilised with children with language delay without co-morbidities and was less effective with children also presenting with intellectual disability and Down syndrome.
•Diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder - The premise for excluding children with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disabilities arose from a review of the literature. Much of the literature available on the use of animal-assisted therapy and communicative behaviours has been with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, for which several studies have found promising results. However, there is far less evidence available on the use of this treatment for children with language delay without other diagnoses
•Known allergies/fear of dogs – in order to protect participant welfare and wellbeing. This will be discussed with parents/caregivers to determine

Study & Design

• Study Type: Interventional
• Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU-m)<br><br>To be audio recorded and transcribed by the student researcher, and then assessed by final year speech pathology students who will be trained in analysing the data and blinded to the treatment group.[5 and 10 weeks post randomization];The index of productive syntax (IPSyn)<br>To be audio recorded and transcribed by the student researcher, and then assessed by final year speech pathology students who will be trained in analysing the data and blinded to the treatment group.[5 and 10 weeks post randomization];Number of different words (NDW),<br>To be audio recorded and transcribed by the student researcher, and then assessed by final year speech pathology students who will be trained in analysing the data and blinded to the treatment group.[5 and 10 weeks post randomization]

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
on-verbal communicative behaviours<br><br>This will be recorded using video recording equipment and then analysed by the student researcher and research supervisors using the Observation of Human-Animal Interaction for Research (OHAIRE) coding system[Data collection over the 10 weeks of treatment<br><br>All weekly 45 minute speech pathology sessions will be video recorded for each participant, and then coded using the tool mentioned above.]