OTPs’ Professional Reasoning in Animal-Assisted Therapy With Dogs in Pediatric Therapy

PURPOSE: The study’s purpose was to understand the professional reasoning used by occupational therapy practitioners (OTP) to select animal-assisted therapy (AAT) with a dog in a treatment plan for their pediatric occupational therapy clients.

METHOD: The qualitative, descriptive study recruited 7 pediatric OTP’s who incorporated AAT with dogs in their practice for at least one year. Participants were sought through AOTA’s & the Pennsylvania Occupational Therapy Association’s (POTA) social media boards. Flyers were sent to occupational therapy departments of hospitals, and occupational therapists whose publications included AAT. Participants were encouraged to invite prospective participants, for snowball sampling. Interviews of the 7 OTP’s were studied, and interactive coding and theme development was employed with member checking applied to validate data. An audit trail and reflexivity journal were kept adding rigor to the process.

RESULTS: OTP’s reported using standard evaluation practices and incorporated professional reasoning afterward to determine if AAT with a dog would benefit their clients. OTP’s used expertise to develop their AAT programs and to select and train their dogs, using primarily procedural and interactive reasoning. Three themes emerged: Occupational therapy decision making processes are primary and fundamental, dogs are exceptional, intuitive therapy partners with unique needs, and adding AAT requires expertise beyond novice.

CONCLUSIONS: OTP’s who wish to engage with dogs in therapy need advanced educational experience and thorough exploration of AAT practices, to best apply occupation centered therapy in context. Further research is needed to support occupational therapy practitioners who utilize AAT with dogs in practice. Interest in AAT is growing; professional decision making with animal welfare in mind is crucial to develop best practices for occupational therapy practitioners, clients, and the animals we involve in therapy.

References

Nieforth, L.O., Schwichtenberg, A.J. & O’Haire, M.E. (2023). Animal-Assisted Interventions for Autism Spectrum Disorder: A systematic review of the literature from 2016 to 2020. Review journal of autism and developmental disorders. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40489-021-00291-6

Fine, A.H., Beck, A.M., & Ng, Z. (2019). The state of animal-assisted interventions: Addressing the contemporary issues that will shape the future. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(20). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16203997

Schell, B. (2019). Professional reasoning in practice. In B. Schell & G. Gillen (Eds), Willard and Spackman’s occupational therapy (13th ed., pp. 482–497). Wolters Kluwer.

Winkle, M.Y. & Ni, K. (2019). Animal-assisted occupational therapy: Guidelines for standards, theory, and practice. In A. Fine (Ed.), Handbook on animal-assisted therapy: Foundations and guidelines for animal-assisted interventions (5th ed., pp. 381–397). Academic Press.