Meeting the Emotion! Application of the Federico II Model for Pet Therapy to an experience of Animal Assisted Education (AAE) in a primary school

Authors discuss some criteria they found useful for an Animal Assisted Education (AAE) intervention in a primary school aimed to promote, in children, interaction with animals, helping them to acknowledge their own emotions and those of others. Generally, these interventions are considered as a valid support for children with emotional or behavioral disorders, but they can also be an interest of Health Psychology as a protective factor against marked statuses of stress, anxiety and difficulties in training programs. In this paper, authors propose an intervention realized according Guidelines proposed in the Federico II Model for Pet Therapy, with a team was made by a psychologist and a veterinarian, with a specific training in Human–Animal Interaction (HAI), a dog and three donkeys. The intervention, addressed to 21 students belonging to a third grade class (8 years old), aimed to promote a contact with primary emotions such as joy, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise. The proposed activities, guided by a playful approach, helped children to recognize and understand these emotions and to develop their relational skills.