Hall Sophie Susannah, Gee Nancy R, Mills Daniel Simon
School of Life Sciences, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, United Kingdom.
WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition, Waltham on the Wolds, Leicestershire, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2016 Feb 22;11(2):e0149759. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149759. eCollection 2016.
Despite growing interest in the value of human-animal interactions (HAI) to human mental and physical health the quality of the evidence on which postulated benefits from animals to human psychological health are based is often unclear. To date there exist no systematic reviews on the effects of HAI in educational settings specifically focussing on the perceived benefits to children of reading to dogs. With rising popularity and implementation of these programmes in schools, it is essential that the evidence base exploring the pedagogic value of these initiatives is well documented.
Using PRISMA guidelines we systematically investigated the literature reporting the pedagogic effects of reading to dogs. Because research in this area is in the early stages of scientific enquiry we adopted broad inclusion criteria, accepting all reports which discussed measurable effects related to the topic that were written in English. Multiple online databases were searched during January-March 2015; grey literature searches were also conducted. The search results which met the inclusion criteria were evaluated, and discussed, in relation to the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine levels of evidence; 27 papers were classified as Level 5, 13 as Level 4, 7 as Level 2c and 1 as Level 2b.
The evidence suggests that reading to a dog may have a beneficial effect on a number of behavioural processes which contribute to a positive effect on the environment in which reading is practiced, leading to improved reading performance. However, the evidence base on which these inferences are made is of low quality. There is a clear need for the use of higher quality research methodologies and the inclusion of appropriate controls in order to draw causal inferences on whether or how reading to dogs may benefit children's reading practices. The mechanisms for any effect remain a matter of conjecture.
尽管人们越来越关注人与动物互动（HAI）对人类身心健康的价值，但动物对人类心理健康的假定益处所基于的证据质量往往不明确。迄今为止，尚无关于教育环境中HAI影响的系统综述，特别是关注给狗读书对儿童的感知益处。随着这些项目在学校越来越受欢迎并得到实施，探索这些举措的教学价值的证据基础必须有充分的记录。
我们使用PRISMA指南系统地调查了报告给狗读书的教学效果的文献。由于该领域的研究处于科学探究的早期阶段，我们采用了广泛的纳入标准，接受所有用英语撰写的讨论与该主题相关的可测量效果的报告。在2015年1月至3月期间搜索了多个在线数据库；还进行了灰色文献搜索。根据牛津循证医学中心的证据水平对符合纳入标准的搜索结果进行了评估和讨论；27篇论文被归类为5级，13篇为4级，7篇为2c级，1篇为2b级。
证据表明，给狗读书可能对一些行为过程产生有益影响，这些行为过程有助于对阅读进行的环境产生积极影响，从而提高阅读表现。然而，做出这些推断所依据的证据质量较低。显然需要使用更高质量的研究方法并纳入适当的对照，以便就给狗读书是否或如何有益于儿童的阅读实践得出因果推断。任何效果的机制仍然是一个推测的问题。
