University of Leeds, UK.
University of Manchester, UK.
Autism. 2022 Aug;26(6):1320-1340. doi: 10.1177/13623613221085338. Epub 2022 Apr 11.
Children with autism typically experience difficulties interacting socially with others when compared to their non-autistic peers. Establishing how effective interventions are for improving social functioning is important to help inform what should be offered to children with autism. This study reviewed how effective interventions that involved interaction with a live animal, known as animal-assisted interventions, are in improving social functioning in children with autism. A systematic search of the evidence on this topic found nine studies, which were explored for the effectiveness of animal-assisted interventions and the quality of methods used. Overall, these studies showed improvements in social functioning following equine-assisted or therapeutic horse-riding interventions, with initial evidence showing improvements are sustained in the short and medium term. However, several issues were identified, which limit the strength of any conclusions that can be drawn from this evidence. For example, in many studies people assessing the children were aware that they received the intervention or were in a control group. There was also not enough evidence available to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of other animal-assisted interventions. Future research should address the limitations that were common in the designs of these studies and investigate the potential benefit of other animal populations, such as dogs and cats.
与非自闭症同龄人相比，自闭症儿童在社交互动方面通常存在困难。确定干预措施在改善社交功能方面的有效性对于告知自闭症儿童应提供哪些干预措施非常重要。本研究回顾了涉及与活体动物互动的干预措施（称为动物辅助干预）在改善自闭症儿童社交功能方面的有效性。对该主题的证据进行了系统搜索，发现了九项研究，这些研究探讨了动物辅助干预的有效性和使用方法的质量。总体而言，这些研究表明，马辅助干预或治疗性骑马干预后社交功能有所改善，初步证据表明，短期和中期内的改善是持续的。然而，发现了一些问题，这些问题限制了从这些证据中得出任何结论的力度。例如，在许多研究中，评估儿童的人都知道他们接受了干预或处于对照组。也没有足够的证据可以得出关于其他动物辅助干预有效性的结论。未来的研究应该解决这些研究设计中常见的局限性，并研究其他动物群体（如狗和猫）的潜在益处。
