Dogs Placed in Elementary Schools Making a Big Difference in Academics and Mental Health for Michigan Students

Priority Pups

To help reduce anxiety—and open the way for learning—several elementary schools in Michigan have enrolled service dogs as full-time happiness ambassadors—and it is paw-sitively working.

Students are “already seeing a big difference in their academics,” according to a news report from WXMI-TV 17.

Priority Health, a Michigan health insurance provider, launched Priority Pups in September when goldendoodles were placed in two of the state’s school districts, “with more to come”.

“I love you, Meeka,” said Shelby, a student at North Godwin Elementary School who was snuggled up with the pup, which serves in a different classroom every day.

Research shows the presence of a trained dog lowers children’s stress, fosters a positive attitude toward learning, and smooths interactions between classmates.

A 2023 report from Mental Health America found that many youth in Michigan with clinical depression did not receive any mental health treatment.

Shelby’s mom, Laurie Uhl, described the difference Meeka is making in her daughter’s life.

“Shelby was diagnosed with a genetic disorder called Fragile X Syndrome, along with autism and ADHD. Here at school, she really struggles with a range of emotions.

“She gets angry and will cry or scream uncontrollably.”

But since Meeka the goldendoodle arrived at school, there is a guaranteed way to bring calm to the situation.

Meeka inside a Michigan classroom – Priority Pups

“I’ve seen Shelby having a meltdown and when Meeka is brought into the room, I can see a breath of fresh air wash over her and she finds comfort.”

It’s not only the stressed-out students that benefit from sitting with the pup during the day.

Research shows that literacy scores went up for children after they read to dogs.

“My math was super hard,” one fifth-grader told WXMI-TV. “But then Meeka came in and when I take a break with her for a few minutes. Then math became really easy.”

The program was made possible by Canines for Change, founded in 2005 by Dr. Nikki Brown, a school psychologist for the Lansing School District in Michigan.

Priority Pups

Dr. Brown began taking her Corgi to school, to work with special education students, and noticed a drastic improvement in their skills and behavior with the addition of a dog. So she teamed up with another trainer to be able to offer service dogs for children with special needs.Three years ago, Canines for Change was approached by their local Grand Ledge School District to place a Facility Dog in each of their nine school

buildings. When Priority Health heard about it, they began funding their own program for schools, Priority Pups.Dogs Placed in Elementary Schools Making a Big Difference in Academics and Mental Health for Michigan Students

Read More........→May 21, 2024

Is It Love Or Lust At First Sight? Difference Revealed By Eye Movements

Courtesy of Stephanie Cacioppo 

Soul singer Betty Everett once proclaimed, “If you want to know if he loves you so, it’s in his kiss.” But a new study by University of Chicago researchers suggests the difference between love and lust might be in the eyes after all. Specifically, where your date looks at you could indicate whether love or lust is in the cards. The new study found that eye patterns concentrate on a stranger’s face if the viewer sees that person as a potential partner in romantic love, but the viewer gazes more at the other person’s body if he or she is feeling sexual desire. That automatic judgment can occur in as little as half a second, producing different gaze patterns. University of Chicago researchers analyzed eye movements and found patterns in how subjects experienced feelings of romantic love or sexual desire. In this image, a viewer’s eyes fixate mostly on the faces of a couple that evokes feelings of romantic love. “Although little is currently known about the science of love at first sight or how people fall in love, these patterns of response provide the first clues regarding how automatic attentional processes, such as eye gaze, may differentiate feelings of love from feelings of desire toward strangers,” noted lead author Stephanie Cacioppo, director of the UChicago High-Performance Electrical NeuroImaging Laboratory. Cacioppo co-authored the report, now published online in the journal Psychological Science, with colleagues from UChicago’s Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, and the University of Geneva. Previous research by Cacioppo has shown that different networks of brain regions are activated by love and sexual desire. In this study, the team performed two experiments to test visual patterns in an effort to assess two different emotional and cognitive states that are often difficult to disentangle from one another—romantic love and sexual desire (lust). Male and female students from the University of Geneva viewed a series of black-and-white photographs of persons they had never met. In part one of the study, participants viewed photos of young, adult heterosexual couples who were looking at or interacting with each other. In part two, participants viewed photographs of attractive individuals of the opposite sex who were looking directly at the camera/viewer. None of the photos contained nudity or erotic images. In both experiments, participants were placed before a computer and asked to look at different blocks of photographs and decide as rapidly and precisely as possible whether they perceived each photograph or the persons in the photograph as eliciting feelings of sexual desire or romantic love. The study found no significant difference in the time it took subjects to identify romantic love versus sexual desire, which shows how quickly the brain can process both emotions, the researchers believe. But analysis of the eye-tracking data from the two studies revealed marked differences in eye movement patterns, depending on whether the subjects reported feeling sexual desire or romantic love. People tended to visually fixate on the face, especially when they said an image elicited a feeling of romantic love. However, with images that evoked sexual desire, the subjects’ eyes moved from the face to fixate on the rest of the body. The effect was found for male and female participants. “By identifying eye patterns that are specific to love-related stimuli, the study may contribute to the development of a biomarker that differentiates feelings of romantic love versus sexual desire,” said co-authorJohn Cacioppo, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor and director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. “An eye-tracking paradigm may eventually offer a new avenue of diagnosis in clinicians’ daily practice or for routine clinical exams in psychiatry and/or couple therapy.” Co-author Mylene Bolmont, a graduate student at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, contributed to the design of the study, conducted the testing and data collection for the study, and assisted with the data analyses. Source: http://news.uchicago.edu/

• Contacts and sources: By Jann Ingmire, University of Chicago

Read More........→February 15, 2016