Development and Evaluation CAT and Youth

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: CAT Intervention Group, Control Group

In brief

This R21 provides a multidisciplinary One Health approach to developing and evaluating a novel Cat Assisted Training (CAT) animal assisted intervention (AAI) for early adolescents with developmental disabilities (DD) and their family cat. Cat social behavior and welfare is heavily influenced by human behavior and training, making it highly likely that cats would also benefit from this program. There remains a critical need for further empirical evaluation of AAI practices, especially those that target the specific needs of youth with disabilities. Further extending the development and evaluation of activity-based AAIs beyond those that include dogs and horses also helps address the critical need to consider and include diverse human participants, creating new equitable opportunities for AAI involvement to those who may have access to cats, but not dogs and horses (due to practical, health, cultural, socio-economic, or other personal reasons).

Key facts

Study ID

NCT05950672

Run by

Oregon State University

People needed

36

Starts

2023-05-30

Expected to finish

2025-08-21

Last updated by the study team

2026-04-13

Who can join

Age: 8 and older, up to 17. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Child with a developmental disability per parental report.
• Family owns a family cat.

You may not qualify if…

• Can not follow instructions.

Where it is running

• Oregon State University — Corvallis, Oregon, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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