A New Method to Measure Animal-Assisted Interventions As a Context to Promote Youth Emotion Regulation

Background and Purpose: Although highly controlled designs such as randomized controlled trials can be used to analyze the efficacy of interventions in some specific environments, this approach can be limited in assessing the nuances inherent in many applied settings. This is particularly true for research on interventions that target emotion regulation, where contextual factors play a critical role in shaping outcomes. Animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) are increasingly used in youth development programs to enhance adaptive emotion regulation. Maintaining contextual integrity here is critical in understanding how these interventions can effectively promote self-regulatory skills. Therefore, innovative methodological approaches are needed to assess interventions focused on emotion regulation and delivered within complex environments where randomization to treatment groups may compromise ecological validity. This pilot study tested the development of a new methodological approach referred to as a Relative Efficacy Map (REM). This approach uses systematic observations of adolescents’ classroom behaviors to identify linkages between AAIs and self-regulation, while maintaining the ecological validity of the environment.

Methods: This study used video data of 50 sixth- and seventh-grade students obtained from a state-approved private school that serves students with special educational needs, including emotional challenges, learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, multiple disabilities, and/or other mental health diagnoses. In addition to traditional mental health treatment and special education, the school integrates a variety of AAIs through its equine, farm animal, wildlife, and canine programs.

Data was analyzed from five-minute video clips coded using the Facial Expression Coding System (FACES), which provides information on the valence (positive, negative) and magnitude of facial expressions. Video clips were obtained either just-before or just-after students participated in a class that incorporated AAIs, an active control condition (i.e., a non-animal-assisted activity that takes place outside of the classroom), or a passive control condition (i.e., classwork as normal). Data analysis included linear multilevel models and damped linear oscillator models that assessed the relative impact of different conditions for the sample as a whole and for youth with specific profiles of clinical diagnoses.

Results: Preliminary analyses indicated that pre-post differences in affect variability varied systematically as a function of condition. After attending AAIs students showed differences in valence (positive or negative) and magnitude of facial expression, compared to attending class-as-usual.

Implications: This study illustrates how intensive observational assessments of emotion regulation can facilitate the evaluation of interventions provided in a holistic school-based setting. This approach allows an assessment of program impacts in situ, rather than within the more-sterile confines of a randomized control trial while additionally accommodating specificity in terms of which interventions impact which youth with which characteristics in which ways. Furthermore, findings provided key insights into the impact of AAIs that have been incorporated in a naturalistic setting and provided valuable information for practitioners interested in similar approaches to academic interventions among youth with complex diagnoses.