The Pet Effect
Did you know pets can improve socialization among those with autism?
Learn more about The Pet Effect here.
Featured Partner
Principal Investigators
Rationale
With feather wands and cat backpacks, a team of researchers embark on a groundbreaking study aimed to foster meaningful connections between kids and their feline friends. Compared to other four-legged friends, there is a lack of accessible training and education for kids to learn about cat physical and behavioral needs. To bridge this gap, kids and their family cats will participate in a twelve-session youth-cat training program that is focused on positive youth development with active learning activities on fear-free cat handling and care. Learning alongside their cat and other youth-cat teams could serve as a catalyst for young people to lead animal assisted activities in their community. This whole-child approach to foster a partnership with their cat has the potential impact of improving the human-animal bond and increasing social and emotional well-being in kids.
Objective
Cat-Youth Activities (CYA) study aims to evaluate whether providing young people access to opportunities to participate in joint activities with their family cat could promote both youth and cat well-being.
Hypothesis
- Participation in an out-of-school youth development program focused on training youth-cat partnerships will result in significantly increased youth engagement and youth thriving indicators of pro-social orientation and positive emotionality compared to baseline and a control group.
- Participation in an out-of-school youth development program focused on training youth-cat partnerships will result in increased youth feelings of attachment towards and sense responsibility of their cat and improved behavioral indicators of cat well-being and the youth-cat bond when compared to baseline and a control group.
Design
Youth and their family cat will take part in a 12-session youth-cat training program that is focused on positive youth development with active learning activities on fear-free cat handling and care. Researchers will employ a multiple baseline pseudo-randomized control (RCT) model to conduct within- and between-group evaluations to assess the youth-cat training program, and its relative value compared to a waitlist control group. The study will use a combination of validated self-report (Thriving, Children’s Treatment of Animals Questionnaire, Pet Care Responsibility Inventory, Lexington Attachment to Pets Scale, and Feline Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire) and behavioral measures (Sociability and Attachment) to evaluate program outcomes.
Expected Results
Not only could this project help youth-cat teams successfully pass a Pet Partner’s therapy team evaluation but another potential outcome is validating an effective training strategy. Sharing an open-source curriculum with other youth development programs and AAI practitioners that focuses on youth-led animal assisted activities and cat training is needed.
