015 Canine Assisted Therapy With Dr. Sabrina Schuck

Attention dog lovers! We were thrilled to have the opportunity to interview Dr. Sabrina Schuck about the research she has led on canine-assisted therapy. In this episode, you will learn the difference between a service animal, a therapy animal, and an emotional support pet. But most exciting are the findings of current research investigating the effectiveness of therapy animals working with kids with ADHD. *Spoiler Alert* The findings are promising but we suggest you listen for yourself. 

Dr. Schuck, is an assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine. She’s also the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for The Children’s School, which is a non-profit private school specifically designed to support the development of executive function in children and adolescents. At UCI, she leads the Positive Assertive Cooperative Kids (P.A.C.K.) where her research team investigates practical applications of Animal Assisted Interventions for children with ADHD and Autism.

You can reach Dr. Schuck by email at Sabrina@uci.edu. If you want to learn more about The Children's School check it out their website here. Information on Pet Partners including the benefits of animal-assisted interventions can be found here. 

Here at the Parenting Balance Podcast, you'll find simple, science-based tools and tricks for parenting kids with ADHD or anxiety. Although we are both family therapists, this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not replace the guidance of a qualified professional. Join us as we debate and discuss our own experiences as parents of kids diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety and breakdown the latest research into easily digestible portions. We created this podcast to educate, inspire hope, explore new ideas and discover together what we know to be true: you are not alone, and finding a community of support can make all the difference. Please join our Parenting Balance Podcast Community here and sign up here to be the first in line for our new Modern Guide to Understanding Kids With ADHD mini-course.

Transcript

Kelly Williams 
Welcome to the parenting balance podcasts. My name is Kelly Williams. I'm a licensed clinical social worker, an ADHD parenting expert by experience. I'm here with my partner. Hi, I'm Teresa Vanpelt. I'm a licensed mental health counselor and anxiety, parenting expert by experience. Pause this right here one listen to it. This podcast is for parents who want to really understand what's going on with ADHD and anxiety. So you can ditch the chaos and feel confident and happy again. 
 
Teresa Vanpelt 
Dr Sabrina shock is an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine. And she's also the executive director of the children's school, formerly the Child Development Center, which is a private school for grades kindergarten through eighth specializing, it's specifically designed for differently abled learners. She is the principal investigator of project, positive assertive cooperative kits, or pack. This is a federally funded research study investigating the effects of animal, assisted therapy with us. Hi Sabrina thank you for being here today with us it's really really an honor that you would give us some of your valuable time to be on our podcasts. Thanks. No worries. My pleasure. Yeah. Okay, so this idea you do animal, assisted intervention, that's what you study. And can you help our listeners, understand what that is. 
 
Dr. Sabrina Schuck 
Sure.  So, for a long time we've used. I don't want to use the term, but we have had pets, assisting us in therapy for children, also. So, in the form of having a pet in the classroom we've. Oftentimes, folks have recommended that families get pets to teach their kids responsibility or empathy. So, for a long time, folks have been thinking that using or having animals assist in therapies is beneficial, but it's only been until. More recently, in the last 10 years that we've actually done rigorous more rigorous randomized control trials is what we call them, or or clinical trials, specifically examining whether therapy dogs are helpful or not helpful or how helpful they are compared to other therapies. With that answer your question, it does it does. And so, you know, let me I'm realizing that we should explain, we did a recently we did an interview with Marcy surface who is a parenting coach, and she talked a lot in her interview about the school and the program there but we need to, I feel like I need to just back up a little bit and talk a little bit about the school where you began having pets in the school just as a thing and now it's a more formal research study is at the Child Development Center. 
 
So, fully. The Child Development Center has a laboratory school, or had a laboratory school at the University of California, Irvine. and for a number of years we were dedicated to trying to find psychosocial interventions or therapies. Talk therapies play therapy social skills therapies for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder primarily, and then the kids that had challenges that that made it difficult for them to access school and access learning. And so one of the things that that that came to mind was in the school we had a mascot, with a former directors pet therapy dog who was also a therapy dog Teddy, who would sit in the front of the of the office with our director, and in collaboration with ob refine a child psychologist, they started to observe that having therapy animals with the kids at the school seemed to reduce anxiety. Help Center kids and help keep kids on task which seems kind of counterintuitive, how would a dog keep kids on task. So, so, so we started kind of doing just some observational research and trying to gather and try to figure out what was going on you know what was what was so special about the interaction between the children and the dog. That seemed to be beneficial and seem to make it evil. A lot of kids to come to school, stay at school or stay on task in their classroom. And that's kind of where that came out of that idea or that notion. At the UC Irvine lab school, we ran for a number of years. Studies, examining how social skills therapy can benefit kids with or without medications and, and that that led to our participation at UCI in a large, with a call longitudinal multi modal treatment study, sponsored by NIH for several decades. Starting in the 1990s, the beginning end. And out of that order. Sorry, I'm just rambling, but that that study that you're talking about is the largest study that there is on in the area of ADHD, am I right about that. That's true the MTA study is the largest randomized clinical trial. Multi site. To date, examining the multi modal treatments are different kinds of treatments for kids with ADHD. And that gave rise to the Children's School, which is a nonprofit school in Irvine that just was originally established in the model that was developed at UCI 
 
Kelly Williams 
congratulations on that. 
 
Dr. Sabrina Schuck 
All right, so what is, what is it, 
 
special training that a therapy dog has like how is it therapy dog different from just a regular old. Yeah, so there's. That's a common, you know, area of misunderstanding is the difference between service animals, and which typically the animals that you see with folks out in public places that indicate working dogs, you know don't don't bother the dog, that kind of thing and that's a service animal which is specifically certified and trained for a particular person for a particular purpose. And, and it's quite extensive and it's quite a demanding. You know process for a dog to be selected to be a service animal. And then it's also quite an extensive process, sometimes up to two, three years in training, a young dog to provide a specific service for an individual with a disability. And, and that may be that can range from anywhere from someone with diabetes, to someone who's blind. A veteran with PTSD. There's lots of children with autism. There's lots of different reasons for which people request or try to find or secure a service animal, and generally that's a legal term that is widely accepted as a working dog. The difference between a therapy animal, and a emotional support animal or a pet. Is that a therapy animal is screen and generally, it's best practice certified by a, an organization that has documented standards for what kind of dog can participate in therapy and attend therapy sessions or complements that therapy sessions, or can provide educational support in schools or emotional support in hospitals. But what makes a therapy dog unique from a pet is that the therapy dog is certified along with its handler, and the handler might be its owner, but it might also be a specific person specifically trained to handle the dog for purposes or another animal. For purposes of providing comfort or complimenting existing therapies or reducing stress on college campuses during finals. And that's how a therapy dogs a little different than an emotional support animal, which an emotional support animal is generally someone's pet, who is prescribed for them via a licensed professional to provide emotional support for specific instances and that that might be more like someone that you see with an animal on a plane that is provided for and sanctioned by their treating mental health professional or physical health professional. So that makes it a little bit different but it's generally a person's own animal or their own state, and also rely on for emotional support. And then there's pets, and most of us know what a pet is a pet is a faithful companion that serves no other specific purpose for any specific reason other than just our joy and comfort. So that does that does that help it's kind of, there's my gosh, it's kind of an alphabet soup out there, we. Yeah, increasingly complex terminology. But, there, there are very different and distinct in their, their roles and and their responsibilities. Right. And so you were saying with service animals, the training could be very rigorous and up to two or three years. Does that mean that a therapy dog. Like the handler and the dog, do a certain kind of a training together. Generally for service animals, by, by certified or organizations that specialize in whichever disability that that dog is being trained for. So there may be an association there are associations, or organizations that trade, specifically for individuals who are blind dogs for America is an example of a specific organization that transfers specific disability. And there's a number of other organizations that. And I can provide you with a list afterwards but that that train animals specifically for various conditions that separate from the handler generally what happens is those dogs are trained by trainers, and then adopted out to qualify individuals. Right. Okay, and then a therapy dog therapy dog is a dog that meets good behavior standards is not easily distracted by other animals is not easily distracted by the presence of food. There's all along a list of what makes the ideal therapy dog and different organizations have different standards for for certifying therapy dog. dyads, which is the handler and the dog, but it doesn't have to be a specific kind of animal or, or if there are a list of animals that they, they do approve. There are dogs or cats or horses. Currently reptiles are not approved by some organizations. But for therapy dogs. There's most organizations are in agreement that the animal has to be well behaved no history of aggression with individuals. No allergies, those kinds of there's kind of, you know, some standards. Definitely is required before certification can have to pass the American Humane Society's recommendations for good behavior. 
 
The best therapy dogs are sometimes animals that are selected to be a guide, or a guide dog or a service dog but then are excluded because they have allergies or because they're too distractible, and they don't meet the cut your will, or your obedience required for a service animal, and yet they're still very common in dogs. It should be noted too that service animals, it's, it's a stressful job. And increasingly, we're looking at the effects of stress on service animals in in doing their work. Dogs and dogs in the military, and and dogs that are serving individuals with disabilities tend to have more stress or experience more stress than that there therapy dogs or puppies. How is that measured how is the stress and the animal measured for a number of veterinary schools. 
 
How would you know that a dog is stressed, and there's a number of telltale signs that all therapy dog handlers are trained and service dog handlers and trainers are are trained to identify and most veterinarians can give you a look for but some of it might be. dogs might be giving signals. What we call it, go live, where they kind of look at you from the side. And I can't really exaggerate on on on audio here but they're looking at a kind of from the side and look a little bit stressed, if you will. I'm also painting, as, as dogs, age, they pant and we know that that's not always just a sign of of fatigue or heat but could be a sign of stress. And so dogs may show stress young dogs even may show stress by panting. They may show stress by licking excessively licking their paws, or cowering, you know, kind of those more obvious signs of stress. But more recently, investigators in the field of animal assisted intervention, human animal interaction, have been studying cortisol levels in the saliva of therapy animals and service animals during interactions. During therapeutic interaction interactions or while they're working and preliminary evidence that just like humans, their stress levels go up and they're measurable, by, by measuring the amount of cortisol in their saliva. And this fascinating just fascinating. There's actually a group that that studying that, you know, animal behavior in response to therapy, And there's a couple of groups in the United States and and and abroad, that are particularly interested in that and like I can provide you with those references too. It's so interesting. What, but let's get to the good part here right. Finding. what are you learning. What are we finding. 
 
So initially, I modeled my initial study after the MTA studies design in the, in that we compared. Instead of comparing psychosocial interventions like parent training and social skills therapy or group therapy with kids play therapy group play kind of instead of 
 coupling those things with medication. We studied those things alone, and those things. Accompany by serve therapy dogs. So, we had. We have 88 families participate. Over the course of four or five years, and they were randomly assigned into either a dog or a group or, you know, a psychosocial only group for a sec social social proof with dogs, sorry. And so we had all of those kids was pretty, pretty complicated design but the bottom line was that all of the kids that participated in the dog group had a will. The good news is everybody got better so that's good right so I know that the psychosocial interventions do work that people just didn't you know not get any better. So, according to parents, by 12 weeks in after 12 weeks of therapy. The children, all the children showed a decrease in, particularly in attention, out of the symptoms that we measured which was a surprise to me. But they also showed an improvement in prose defense all the differences that you talked about the decreases in stop. Yes, significant decreases from baseline, or from beginning of treatment, and in inattention and significant increases in pro social behaviors. And by that we mean assertion and. And we also had increases in, in self esteem and self regard. And, and, but interestingly, the kids in the dog group seemed to get better faster, or they did get better faster and we had a significant. Finding for time in that the kids in the dog group improved significantly more than the kids in the non dog group earlier on in treatment. So by about six weeks, we were seeing big differences between the doctor for the non dog group, whereas the non dog group, kind of caught up to, if you will, to be not a significant difference at the end of the study in attention. Although significant changes from baseline for both. Does that make sense. yeah tricky without, without a graph. 
 
Basically, everybody got in. And I think what makes that important is, you know, one of the things that that we struggle with, as professionals and in schools, is the shortened amount of time that we have to, to provide these kinds of therapies in schools, there's lots of school breaks and holidays and it's difficult to, to create an after school program like this that lasts 12 to 14 weeks long and, and so it's encouraging that we could see these kinds of differences early on with the dogs supporting the therapies. I think the other thing that I think is pretty compelling is, you know, oftentimes, psychological therapies are only paid for by insurance companies are reimbursed by insurance companies for a finite number of sessions. And if we only have a few sessions available to us we want to get the most out of them. And I think kind of the takeaway from that initial study was, hey, something's going on between in the dog group, and we're not exactly sure what it is, is it something physiological Is it something emotional. Is it better generalization because the kids go home and talk about the therapy because they're motivated to talk about dogs. And so the parents talk about their therapy with them more during the week, or is it 
 
something physiological that's going on, that is causing the kids to be more motivated to Be there or be engaged in the therapy while they're present, be more present or present. So just recently, we've been collecting some pilot data, and trying to start a new study to examine those physiological measures that may. It may tell us, okay, what is the nature of this relationship that these kids seem to have with the dogs in therapy. So we'll be looking at at biomarkers like heart rate, and and cortisol levels and stress levels and some other hormone levels that can be obtained through saliva kids while they're in groups with dogs and looking at how they differ from dog groups and non dog groups. That's amazing. It's so interesting. So, I think, you know, I'm gonna burn planets right super. 
 
Kelly Williams 
But, you know, we're here in Florida on the east coast of the USA and you're out there in California on the west coast. And I feel like there are interventions and therapies and this being one of them, that they tend to work their way from the west to the east, you know, so where we are over here there are a lot of, you know, frankly, you're the only person I know who's who does this right. So, would would getting a family pack. Like do you know if if getting a family pet can 
 
Dr. Sabrina Schuck 
kind of provide some of the same results as you've seen with therapy dogs in your research. Sure, that's a load, that's a loaded question that I get asked all the time actually think I don't have any short answers and anybody who knows me knows I don't have any short answers but you know it's it's a complex question. There is some evidence that just actually came out 
about the effect of pet ownership and empathy in in young children. And there's, there's 
 a lot of preliminary evidence that suggests that families that raised past. 
 
Also, their children may benefit from. In terms of their, the amount of empathy or caregiving or understanding that they have for other living beings. But you know what, I want to point out caution that, you know, a lot of families will say to me Oh well, I have a child that has autism. I heard that dogs are good Should I get a dog. Well, are you prepared to have another dependent. And what is the level of impairment that your child's Autism is already, bringing to the family, and how much of a strain on the family, would it be to bring a pet in and. And 
 similarly, for a lot of families that with kids with ADHD. They've come to me and they say well it seems like it would really help control my child's activity level or would really, I read that it really helps with focus and attention. And, I think, yes I think it's awesome and dogs are super fun, but that's that's anecdotal, and the evidence suggests that, you know, we have the way that dogs have been helpful is, is, is right now, then very prescribed ways with dogs that are screened specifically to work with kids with ADHD and with autism, and with specifically specific kinds of behaviors and specific kinds of therapy that accompany that. So, so I wouldn't, I wouldn't say oh if you run out and get a dog, then your child's going to do their homework. So I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to, you know, leave that alone to believe that it's tragic right to jump to those conclusions, for the sake of full, and the sake of the family. And we know that children are at greater risk for for dog bites. So it's important to know, you know, teach families How to Train dogs and to ascertain how to select the right dog. 
 
You know, we want we always want to try to select a dog from a shelter whenever possible, but sometimes dogs and shelters are not the best match for a family with a bunch of young children. Sometimes they're perfect sometimes. But there are a lot, there's a lot more screening and consideration that needs to be done before we welcome a pet into the family. Well, I was just gonna say that I have heard recently from a child that a school locally, Tampa Bay school has a pet. I think the directors hat or something that comes to school sometimes and roams the halls. And is there for cooks to pack, if they need to take a break and leave the class for a minute. I just thought of that and as I talked to 
 
Kelly Williams 
thought it was really helpful. 
 
Dr. Sabrina Schuck 
Yeah actually one of my colleagues trail press in Florida and she's done, mainly done research with PTSD and veterans, but it is happening around the country and seemingly, you know, California is kind of maybe a little bit more pet friendly. 
 
But really, in Europe, this has been happening for quite some time, and actually one of the biggest burpee dog organizations or or therapy dog services in the country is in Virginia at VCU Medical Center, and they have a team a huge team of dyads pet dyads that visit the hospital, they visit the children's units that cancer unit the chemo unit that the intensive care unit the CCU unit and they've been doing it successfully for a number of years here at UC Irvine, we have a pet therapy program that comes in. For folks going through chemo generally also at the Children's Hospital of Orange County the local chapter of pet partners. goes has, has a number of volunteers that regularly visit chalk art Children's Hospital of Orange County, and pet partners is probably one of the largest pet partnering organizations in the country. That's that's in a number of schools, but it's typically done after school or in libraries for concerns of allergies or fears of pets, most public schools have in America has not come on board with the installation of a regular pet, or therapy animal on site. There are schools though that specialize in animal assisted intervention there's a school in New York called Green chimneys, that is literally a farm school. So, there are schools that have been embracing this for quite some time. Wow, it's so interesting. Well, so if we have listeners who would like to contact you to get more information, how can how can they reach you. Well if folks want to know more about animal assisted interventions for kids in general or for kids with ADHD specifically, they can shoot me an email at Sabrina SAbri na at UCI that's for University of California, Irvine but just uci.edu. And if folks are interested in more information on the Children's School, where we have dogs visit us regularly. You can send an inquiry to the info at the Children's School dot net, or you can go to their website and find out more about their program www dot children's school all one word.net. That's two s's in between children's and school, it's very tricky. Right. Oh my gosh, this has been so incredibly interesting. thank you so much again for sharing some of your time with us. Well hurt, anytime. I hope everyone is enjoying our interviews as much as I am I'm learning so much from all these professionals that we are speaking with. If you have any ideas or any suggestions, we recommend that you join us at our Facebook group. Our Facebook community parenting balanced podcast community, and make your suggestions there. 
 
Teresa Vanpelt 
Join us next time. 
 
Thank you for listening to the parenting balanced podcast to join our mailing list go to parenting balanced. COM slash podcast. When you join you will be notified of upcoming live. 
 
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