Outcomes of assistance dog placement in the home for individuals with autism spectrum disorder and their families: A pilot study

Public health is moving toward the goal of implementing evidence-based interventions. To accomplish this, there is a need to select, adapt, and evaluate intervention studies. Such selection relies, in part, on making judgments about the feasibility of possible interventions and determining whether comprehensive and multilevel evaluations are justified. There exist few published standards and guides to aid these judgments. This article describes the diverse types of feasibility studies conducted in the field of cancer prevention, using a group of recently funded grants from the National Cancer Institute. The grants were submitted in response to a request for applications proposing research to identify feasible interventions for increasing the utilization of the Cancer Information Service among underserved populations.

The inclusion of animals in therapeutic activities, known as animal-assisted intervention (AAI), has been suggested as a treatment practice for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This paper presents a systematic review of the empirical research on AAI for ASD. Fourteen studies published in peer-reviewed journals qualified for inclusion. The presentation of AAI was highly variable across the studies. Reported outcomes included improvements for multiple areas of functioning known to be impaired in ASD, namely increased social interaction and communication as well as decreased problem behaviors, autistic severity, and stress. Yet despite unanimously positive outcomes, most studies were limited by many methodological weaknesses. This review demonstrates that there is preliminary "proof of concept" of AAI for ASD and highlights the need for further, more rigorous research.