Social Working Dogs Support to Children With Problematic School Absence

The purpose of this project is to investigate whether trained social service dogs can increase students' school attendance and school motivation, and ultimately contribute to students reaching the basic learning goals. Main research questions are: 1. What are the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of having social service dogs support at schools to improve learning outcome and school attendance in students with problematic school absence? 2. What are the risks to the health and well-being of those social working dogs when they work in the school environment as well as the challenges in bringing dogs to the schools? Researchers compared the intervention group which consisted of students supported by social working dogs, to the control group of students supported by special education teachers. Participants were assigned to each group randomly. Students from each group met the support teams for 30 minutes per session, twice per week for 10-12 weeks. During the intervention, children had physical contact with dogs as much as they wished and on consideration of dogs' welfare. The dog handler carried out some pedagogical tasks, such as children reading to the dog while the dog was next to the child or when its head was on the child's lap. The dog handlers documented the process of each session and observed the children on their educational tasks. Children in the control group met special education teachers and received pedagogical tasks involving Swedish, mathematics, etc. Similar to the dog team, special education teachers documented the process and observed the performance of children's educational tasks.