TheAdvantagesof AnimalTherapyPartTwo

Similarly, a study by Wijker, Leontejavas, Spek and Enders-Sledgers (2019) found that “animal-assisted therapy (AAT) with a dog reduced perceived stress and agoraphobia symptoms in adults with ASD.”

Combined, I feel that both studies show that, in theory, the implementation of animal therapy would benefit neurodiverse students on campus.

Thedisadvantagesof animaltherapy

Doesn’t account for allergies or fears caused by animals

Needs a lot of preparation work to ethically manage the resources involved

Can put the animals in undue stress if not handled effectively by their handlers

TheDemographics

of participantsin mysurvey

I found that my 7 seven participants were “aware of neurodiversity”, were 85.71% from Northumbria’s student body, and were women.

This does limit how conclusive my data is; however, I am happy with anyone who responded

TheData(GreenTherapy)

Within my primary data, each participant supported spending time in green areas as a way to relax. However, only 28.57 spent 4-6 hours per week outdoors, with the rest spending of the participants spending 1-3 hours.

This suggests that most of my participants desired more time outdoors than their work allowed. In addition, all of the participants used the three positive terms (positive, relaxing, helpful) rather than negative terms to describe using green areas to aid their mental health.

TheData(AnimalTherapy)

The majority of the participants (57.14%) listed that the idea of animal therapy was helpful, whereas 28.57% were indifferent, and 14.29% answered no. This suggests that animal therapy, while helpful, isn’t seen in the same good light as animals are an acquired taste.

Despite my pre-held notion that dogs would be more popular among those desiring animal therapy, I found that cats had a lead of one over dogs. This might suggest that cat therapy would be a better choice to implement than dog therapy in the aid of neurodiverse people.