This R01 application will provide a multidisciplinary One Health approach to an imitation-based physical activity intervention for adolescents with developmental disabilities and their family dog. The novel inter- vention approach includes the use of the family dog in an established dog training protocol, focused on physical activity and aimed at improving physical activity, quality of life and social wellbeing for children with developmental disabilities. The study team has tested the feasibility of this program and their preliminary findings have revealed phyiscal and social-emotional improvements in children with developmental disabilities following this animal assisted intervention. There has been relativeily limited research focused on the physical activity of adolescents with developmental disabilities and there re- mains a critical need to develop strategies that will encourage an active lifestyle for adolescents with de- velopmental disabilities. Animal assisted therapy has known positive impacts on morale and is also known to reduce depressive psychological symptoms for children and adults. Yet, traditional ?service dogs? are prohibitively expensive for many families. Dog ownership alone is known to improve health- related physical activity. Thus, a critical need exists to create physical activity interventions that are easily accessible and provide manageable home-based physical activity adherence, but that are less expensive than traditional service dogs. To achieve these goals the investigators of this project have developed the following specific aims: 1) To evaluate a novel imitation-based dog training program to promote physical activity in children with developmental disabilities; 2) To evaluate the impact of participation in an imitation-based dog-training program on the child?s quality of life, feelings of social wellbeing and the child-dog relationship; 3) To evaluation the human-animal-interaction of the child and the family dog based on participation in the program. The long term goal of this research is to improve the lives of adolescents with developmental disabilities. This research supports the One Health initiative and brings together aspects of improving health related to human and animal development.
The proposed research will improve our understanding of a ?one health? approach to physical activity interventions for adolescents with developmental disabilities through the multi-site evaluation of a novel, imitation-based, intervention with the family dog. This intervention is designed to increase daily physical activity, quality of life and social wellbeing in adolescents with developmental disabilities, even after the program has been completed. This research will improve public health by evaluating new areas of animal assisted intervention aimed at improved developmental trajectories for adolescents with developmental disabilities, directly addressing the research goals of the One Health initiative.
