TERAPIA ASSISTIDA POR ANIMAIS: O ANIMAL COMO AUXÍLIO TERAPÊUTICO

Abstract

There are many health promotion measures and Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT) is classified as one of these measures. Thus, this work addresses the perspective of using the animal as a therapeutic aid through AAT. The main objective was to verify how Animal Assisted Therapy helps the development of social skills in childhood and adolescence. As a methodology, a bibliographic research was carried out using indexed databases. The results showed that AAT presents itself as an intervention that facilitates the socialization process of children and adolescents, facilitating the establishment of communication and the improvement of interpersonal relationships. Therefore, AAT presents itself as a potential therapeutic intervention, however, due to the limitation of studies on the subject, further studies are needed to show the relationship of AAT with social skills.