Animal-assisted Resilience Training for Children With Stressful Life Events or Autism Spectrum Disorder (AART)

April 28, 2026 updated by: University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland

Effects of an Animal-assisted Resilience Training for Children With a History of Stressful Life Events or a Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Pilot Study

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn about the effects of an animal-assisted resilience training in children who experienced stressful life events or who have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. The main question it aims to answer is:

• Is an animal-assisted resilience training a feasible approach to increase resilience in children with a history of stressful life events or a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder?

Participants will take part in 12 training sessions of a standardized resilience training. The training is group-based, takes place outdoors, and includes interactions with different animals. It focuses on self-esteem, self-perception, dealing with emotions, and social competence.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

107

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Switzerland
      • Basel, Switzerland, 4055
        • University of Basel

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Age between 2 and 4 years (toddler group) or 8 and 12 years (children group)
  • History of at least one stressful life event experience OR diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder
  • Basic knowledge of either German or English of parents and child to follow the instructions during the training sessions and completion of interviews.

Exclusion Criteria:

- Medical contraindications for contact with animals, such as allergies or phobia

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Animal-assisted resilience training
12 sessions of group-based, animal-assisted resilience training.
Behavioral: Animal-assisted resilience training
Participants take part in 12 sessions (120 minutes each), each session focuses on a topic that is related to resilience. The intervention takes part outdoors on a farm, and includes interactions with several different animals. The training takes place in small groups, and includes exercises, observations, and discussions.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Questionnaire on resources in childhood and adolescence
Time Frame: 18 weeks
Pre-to-post assessment changes in resilience
18 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Questionnaire to assess emotion regulation in children and adolescents
Time Frame: 18 weeks
Pre-to-post assessment changes in emotion regulation
18 weeks
Feeling secure and motivation to participate as measured on a 0-10 scale
Time Frame: 12 weeks
Motivation and feeling secure as measured at the beginning and end of each session
12 weeks
Intervention satisfaction as assessed in semi-structured interview
Time Frame: 18 weeks (follow-up)
Satisfaction with program content and structure, as measured by qualitative interview
18 weeks (follow-up)
Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)
Time Frame: 18 weeks
Pre-to-post assessment changes in peer-relationship problems and prosocial behavior measures
18 weeks
Number of attended sessions
Time Frame: 12 weeks
Number of attended sessions over the course of the training
12 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

August 10, 2021

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 31, 2025

Study Completion (Actual)

December 31, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 22, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 29, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

September 6, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 4, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 28, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • Resilience training

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

Data will be shared upon request and only once study results have been published.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Clinical Trials on Autism Spectrum Disorder

Clinical Trials on Animal-assisted resilience training

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Italy

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

Subscribe