Evaluating preference for and reinforcing efficacy of a therapy dog to increase verbal statements
Therapy-dog access works as pay for talking in only a minority of autistic preschoolers—probe first before writing it into the plan.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Five preschoolers with autism spent time with a therapy dog.
The dog only came over after the child said a word or phrase.
Researchers compared this to free dog time that did not depend on talking.
They counted how many new verbal statements each child made.
What they found
Only one child talked more when the dog visit had to be earned.
Two children started more social play, even though their words stayed flat.
Two children showed no clear change at all.
The team calls the results “mixed” — the dog helped some, but not most.
How this fits with other research
Dudley et al. (2019) saw quick social gains after just ten minutes of dog play.
Their dog time was free, yet kids still smiled, talked and gestured more.
The new study set dog time as a reward, yet most kids did not talk more.
Free dog contact may spark social bids better than using the dog as pay.
Scorzato et al. (2017) ran dog therapy for adults with ID for twenty weeks.
They also saw medium gains in social and motor skills.
Together the picture is clear: dogs can help social skills, but making the dog a reinforcer for talking is hit-or-miss.
Why it matters
Before you build a program around a therapy dog, test it.
Run one session where the child gets dog time for talking, and one where the dog just visits.
Track which setup gives you more words or social bids.
If the child is like most in this study, you will keep the dog for mood and pair it with a different reinforcer for language.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this study was to evaluate preference for and reinforcing efficacy of a therapy dog to increase verbal statements across different contingencies. Five children with autism spectrum disorder ages 3-8 years participated. Alternating treatments and reversal designs were used to compare conditions in which (a) a therapy dog was not present, (b) access to a therapy dog was noncontingent, (c) access to a therapy dog was contingent on interacting with a therapist, and (d) access to another preferred item was contingent on interacting with a therapist. Results varied across participants. Noncontingent access to the therapy dog slightly increased verbal statements for 1 participant. Contingent access to the therapy dog increased social interactions for 2 participants; however, this was the most effective intervention for only 1 participant. Practitioners should be aware that some clients may be better suited for interventions including therapy dogs than others.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2020 · doi:10.1002/jaba.668