Animal Assisted Therapy

Working with animals has been shown to benefit students in many ways including: 

• Children with autism were engaged in significantly greater use of language as well as social interaction in their therapy sessions that incorporated animals compared to standard therapy sessions without them
• Improve motivation
• Decrease heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol (stress hormone)
• Improve academic skills such as reading fluency
• Help build trust and provide a sense of security
• Animals offer unconditional acceptance
• Promote character traits that include; caring, cooperation, compassion, empathy, gratitude, humanity, nurturance, patience, perseverance, respect, responsibility, self-control, self-esteem, and service