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Leja Ferlan[1], Erna Žgur[2]

Abstract

The article is about the role of a therapy dog for the development of social skills in a student with a moderate intellectual disability. Our chosen student attends a special education programme. In the research, we focused mostly on the student's social skills, such as communication, self-care (personal hygiene, eating, and dressing) and caring for others (for a therapy dog – feeding, brushing and walking the dog). We observed social skills such as releasing one's own tension, promoting positive self-esteem, expressing emotions clearly, as well as recognizing emotions, and spatial orientation (in and out of school). The research process took the form of individual treatments. We found out that the involvement of a therapy dog had an effect on improving the student's social skills. Improvements were seen in the areas of communication, self-care, recognition of emotions, release of one's own tension and spatial orientation. The most noticeable progress in the student was improvement in communication, self-care and releasing her own tension. During the sessions with the therapy dog, the student was more active and motivated and communicated loudly and confidently. She even greeted, said goodbye, thanked, asked for something, told if something bothered her, brushed her hair, put a patch and bandage on, poured water into a glass, prepared a snack, expressed the need to retreat to a corner and expressed if she was afraid of something or if she did not want to do something. She correctly determined the right and left side and led us appropriately to the school gym, hall and playground.

Keywords: therapy dog, social skills, moderate intellectual development disorder, special education programme