AUTHOR=Guérin Noémie A. , Rodriguez Kerri E. , Brodhead Matthew T. , O’Haire Marguerite E. TITLE=Assessing Preferences for Animals in Children with Autism: A New Use for Video-Based Preference Assessment JOURNAL=Frontiers in Veterinary Science VOLUME=4 YEAR=2017 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2017.00029 DOI=10.3389/fvets.2017.00029 ISSN=2297-1769 ABSTRACT=

The inclusion of animals into interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a growing practice known as animal-assisted intervention (AAI). The choice of the animal to include in an intervention is often solely up to the interventionist and depends on their experience, subjective judgment, and ease of access to different animals. For individuals with ASD who are non-verbal and unable to indicate preferred stimuli or activities, incorporating preference into interventions has been linked to increases in positive behaviors and enhanced quality of life. We propose that animal choice based on a participant’s preference may enhance the experience of AAI and maximize its outcomes. A common technique used to reliably determine preferred interactions and activities in interventions for children with ASD is a stimulus preference assessment. The video-based multiple-stimulus without replacement (MSWO) procedure, in particular, allows for discrimination of complex stimuli that could not feasibly be presented all at once, which is the case when choosing an animal. Based on the well-documented reliability of this technique in the field of applied behavior analysis, we propose that a future direction in AAI is utilizing video-based MSWO to guide animal selection.