An Interdisciplinary Approach of Animal Assisted Therapy for the Special Needs Children
The study investigates the dynamic of verbal and non verbal communication in the context of Animal Assisted Therapy for children with special needs, using ethological and sociometrical methods (i.e. focal individual sampling, ethogram and sequential behavior analysis) The study followed the evolution of a 5 year old boy with mild mental retardation, ADHD symptoms and a very low level of verbalization, through one year of weekly AAT (dog assisted therapy) sessions. Each session had an.