The project will look at the effects of a dog-assisted intervention:
- We will compare the effects in typically developing children and in children with special needs.
- Both typically developing children and children with special needs will be from varying socioeconomic backgrounds.
- We will investigate the effects on children’s physiological, psychological, socio-emotional, motor and cognitive behaviour.
- We will compare the dog- assisted intervention group with two other groups – one relaxation intervention group plus a non-intervention control group.
- We will investigate the effects of each intervention for classroom-based intervention (where children take part as a group) and individual intervention.