Mental Hygienic Aspects of Animal Assisted Education

Autor/inn/en	Takács, István; Szalai, Katalin
Titel	Mental Hygienic Aspects of Animal Assisted Education
Quelle	In: Practice and Theory in Systems of Education, 10 (2015) 2, S.150-156 (7 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1788-2583
DOI	10.1515/ptse-2015-0014
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Educational Research; Mental Health; Pilot Projects; Control Groups; Experimental Groups; Ethology; Animal Behavior; Ecology; Early Childhood Education; Educational Practices; Observation; Interaction Process Analysis; Qualitative Research; Children; Intelligence Tests; Hungary; Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Bildungsforschung; Pädagogische Forschung; Psychohygiene; Pilot project; Modellversuch; Pilotprojekt; Ethologie; Tierverhalten; Ökologie; Early childhood; Education; Frühkindliche Bildung; Frühpädagogik; Bildungspraxis; Beobachtung; Prozessanalyse; Qualitative Forschung; Child; Kind; Kinder; Intelligence test; Intelligenztest; Ungarn
Abstract	The Institution for Special Education at the Faculty of Pedagogic of the University of Kaposvár has been engaged in animal assisted activities for about three years. Our most recent research program was conducted for over two month in the Spring of 2014 with the involvement of 66 children--all kindergarten and elementary school age--11 special educators, physicians, psychologists, special educators, teachers, and ethologists. The primary focus of our research was the development (and examination) of memory; however, observations with ethological and mental hygiene angles were a natural segment of our work. A significant part of the observations pointed to factors that both the children and their educators have experienced: the acceptance of each other, an increased level of tolerance, and an increased attention level towards the partner (human and animal). The teachers gave account of their respective observations in a small conference at the end of the last school year. Researches were offered a glimpse into the unique world of the relationship between a part of "living nature"--the pygmy rabbit in our case--and humans. During the 12 sessions of the training our colleagues have made observations that could serve as basis for a new system of paradigms of animal assisted pedagogics in the future. Our experience can also be re-considered with aspects of remedial pedagogics: we are convinced that animal assistance can become an accentuated part of the care of children and students with impairments. This is also implied by the fact that preparatory works for the continuation of this research at a kindergarten and at a school are already in progress. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01