Emotion Facial Processing in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Pilot Study of the Impact of Service Dogs

Acceptability and effects of acquiring an assistance or companion dog for families of children on the autism spectrum

PURPOSE

Assistance and companion dogs have numerous positive effects for family of autistic children, such as supporting their rehabilitation and improving their quality of life. To date, very few studies have compared the effects of both types of dogs. This comparison, considering the limited access to assistance dogs, could be helpful for families wanting to adopt a dog.

METHODS

An explanatory sequential design with a mixed-method approach was used. First, 85 parents (nassistance dogs = 57; ncompanion dogs = 28) of children aged between 3 and 17 years old (M = 10.73, SD = 3.67) completed an online questionnaire including sociodemographic questions and the Treatment Acceptability Rating Form-Revised (TARF-R). Then, 17 of these participants (nassistance dogs = 14; ncompanion dogs = 3) completed a semi-structured interview.

RESULTS

The quantitative data analyses showed that parents with assistance dogs were significantly more satisfied: t (83) = -2.12, p = .037, d = 0.49. Significant associations between some sociodemographic variables (e.g., number of children, comorbid condition, reasons for acquiring a dog) and acceptability/satisfaction (TARF-R total scores) were found. The qualitative analysis revealed that families with both dog types observed positive effects.

CONCLUSIONS

In brief, having an assistance dog constitutes a significant added value; nevertheless, both types of dogs are appreciated.

How Do Children and Adolescents with ASD Look at Animals? A Scoping Review

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by interaction and communication differences, entailing visual attention skill specificities. Interactions with animals, such as in animal-assisted interventions or with service dogs, have been shown to be beneficial for individuals with ASD. While interacting with humans poses challenges for them, engaging with animals appears to be different. One hypothesis suggests that differences between individuals with ASD's visual attention to humans and to animals may contribute to these interaction differences. We propose a scoping review of the research on the visual attention to animals of youths with ASD. The objective is to review the methodologies and tools used to explore such questions, to summarize the main results, to explore which factors may contribute to the differences reported in the studies, and to deduce how youth with ASD observe animals. Utilizing strict inclusion criteria, we examined databases between 1942 and 2023, identifying 21 studies in international peer-reviewed journals. Three main themes were identified: attentional engagement and detection, visual exploration, and behavior. Collectively, our findings suggest that the visual attention of youths with ASD towards animals appears comparable to that of neurotypical peers, at least in 2D pictures (i.e., eye gaze patterns). Future studies should explore whether these results extend to real-life interactions.

Effects of service dogs on children with ASD's symptoms and parents' well-being: On the importance of considering those effects with a more systemic perspective

The integration of a service dog can have numerous benefits for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, although integration takes place within a family, little is known about the dynamics of these benefits on the family microsystem. Thus, the aim of our study was to propose a more systemic perspective, not only by investigating the benefits of SD integration, but also by exploring the relationships between improvements in children with ASD, parents' well-being, parenting strategies and the quality of the child-dog relationship. Twenty parent-child with ASD dyads were followed before, as well as 3 and 6 months after service dog integration. At each stage, parents completed an online survey which included: the Autism Behavior Inventory (ABI-S), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-Y), the Parenting Stress Index Short Version (PSI-SF), the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS) and the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ). First, repeated measure one-way ANOVAs revealed that both children's ASD symptoms and parents' anxiety decreased significantly after service dog integration. Additionally, Spearman correlations revealed that the more ASD symptoms decreased, the more parent's anxiety and parenting stress also decreased. Second, the quality of the child-dog relationship appeared to contribute to those benefits on both children's ASD symptoms and parents' well-being. Interestingly, parenting strategies seemed to adapt according to these benefits and to the quality of the child-dog relationship. Through a more systemic perspective, this study highlighted that the integration of a service dog involved reciprocal and dynamic effects for children with ASD and their parents, and shed new light on the processes that may underlie the effects of a service dog for children with ASD.

Facial Emotion Recognition Deficit in Children with Moderate/Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Although previous studies have reported a facial expression classification deficit among adults with SDB, we do not know whether these findings can be generalized to children. In our study, children with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) were divided into three groups: primary snoring (n = 51), mild obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) (n = 39), and moderate/severe OSA (n = 26). All participants, including 20 healthy controls, underwent an overnight polysomnography recording and the Emotional Expression Recognition Task. Psychosocial problems were evaluated using the parent-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). There was a borderline significant interaction between expression category and group on reaction times. Further analysis revealed that positive classification advantage (PCA) disappeared in the moderate/severe OSA group, whereas it persisted in the control, primary snoring, and mild OSA groups. Emotional symptoms were positively correlated with OAHI. In both the happy and sad conditions, RT was negatively related to age and body mass index (BMI) but was independent of the obstructive apnea-hypopnea index (OAHI), arterial oxygen (SaO₂) and total sleep time. The accuracy of identifying a sad expression was negatively related to conduct problems. Children with moderate/severe OSA exhibited dysfunction in facial expression categorization, which could potentially affect social communication ability.