Autistic kids find a tough time in trying to express what they feel most of the times. That’s not all, they also realize their problems of speech impairment but that does not imply they should remain like this for the rest of their lives. Steps need to be taken so that there is improvement in their condition but how is the most common question that worried parents often ask. Well, research and a lot of case study later it has been seen that autistic kids have shown remarkable improvement in the company of pets. Yes, it does sound very strange but there has been a handful of case studies to prove that.
A look at some of the researches
A group of 40 kids were examined along with their families. The first assessment was whether the families had pets or not and even if they did how are the kids with autism different among both these group. There were a couple of more queries that might interest you. All these are carefully pointed out so that you know what you should do to improve your child’s autistic symptoms.
The research led us to understand
A quick look at these points would definitely interest you as much it did to us:
- Kids who had a pet in their home ever since their birth and the kids who did not have pets at all – this was the first category and both the group of kids did not show much difference in their habits and symptoms. The kids had similar traits irrespective of whether they had pets or not.
- Kids who received a pet after a couple of years – kids who got pets when they were 3 or 4 showed changes in their habits and actions. This was indeed very surprising to see that the kids who never had pets but were suddenly gifted one showed signs of improvement. The improvements came in the form of sharing and developing relationships with the pets.
- The average age of the kids in the research were 10 and the signs of improvement were seen among kids who got introduced to pets during their kindergarten years whereas those kid who did not have pets or the ones who had them since birth were almost similar.
This is a very interesting piece of research that helped researchers understand that having a new entity in an autistic kid’s life excites them enough to develop a special bond or relationship with them. Kids tend to get compassionate with pets since they don’t have to worry about communicating through words but through gestures.
