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Dog Assisted Therapy Is Hypothesized to Lower Stress in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) And Children With Down Syndrome (DS), Which May Be Visible on a Physiological Level. In This Study, We Measured Heart Rate Variability (HRV) And Salivary
Griffioen, R.E.; van Boxtel, G.J.M.; Verheggen, T.; Enders-Slegers, M.-J.; Van Der Steen, S. Group Changes in Cortisol and Heart Rate Variability of Children with Down Syndrome and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder during Dog-Assisted Therapy. Children2023, 10, 1200.
Griffioen, R.E.; van Boxtel, G.J.M.; Verheggen, T.; Enders-Slegers, M.-J.; Van Der Steen, S. Group Changes in Cortisol and Heart Rate Variability of Children with Down Syndrome and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder during Dog-Assisted Therapy. Children 2023, 10, 1200.
Griffioen, R.E.; van Boxtel, G.J.M.; Verheggen, T.; Enders-Slegers, M.-J.; Van Der Steen, S. Group Changes in Cortisol and Heart Rate Variability of Children with Down Syndrome and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder during Dog-Assisted Therapy. Children2023, 10, 1200.
Griffioen, R.E.; van Boxtel, G.J.M.; Verheggen, T.; Enders-Slegers, M.-J.; Van Der Steen, S. Group Changes in Cortisol and Heart Rate Variability of Children with Down Syndrome and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder during Dog-Assisted Therapy. Children 2023, 10, 1200.
Abstract
Dog Assisted Therapy is hypothesized to lower stress in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and children with Down Syndrome (DS), which may be visible on a physiological level. In this study, we measured Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and salivary cortisol of 20 children with DS or ASD at the beginning and end of 6 weekly sessions of Dog-Assisted Therapy. We found a decrease of cortisol levels during single sessions, but no overall effect after 6 sessions (6 weeks). The effect of Dog Assisted Therapy on the increase of HRV could not be confirmed. This study is one of the first to use physiological measurements to test the effects of DAT.
Keywords
Animal Assisted Interventions; HRV; Cortisol; Stress; Dog Assisted Therapy; Down Syndrome; Autism Spectrum Disorder
Subject
Social Sciences, Behavior Sciences
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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