ARGOS, Dog therapy for children with disability

During this quarter Argos has served with a lot of love and happiness more than 250 therapies to 18 boys, 9 girls and 27 mothers of children with disability in Santiago Atitlán. Argos served and supported children in our facilities and he went to communities to visit those children who can´t move to attend to their therapies. 

Argos is very professional on its duties and in its working sessions is very serious. Children love to play with him, they enjoy to see Argos jump and follow the games patterns (get in and out from tunnel, search for food in cones, knock down towers, pass through hula-hoops, etc).  children are high motivated to finish their activities to feed Argos and see his face full of happiness. 

Argos is implementing group therapy with children referred from language therapy, physiotherapy and early stimulation programs. In October Argos started to work with mother of children with disability and their children to involve mothers in therapies. It was a challenge to involve mothers in therapies, they were afraid to fail in front of other mothers. Children were developing activities and mothers were following them, than, mother were implementing activities with their children. Children were leading and guiding activities to their mothers. We could see attitude changes in mothers, some of them were saying  “ we didn’t know that my child was able to develop this kind of activities, we saw therapies just as a games, but now we know that each game has its specific objective to improve our children skills and capacities”, Mothers had the opportunity to work and share with other children to see the different skills and capacities in each one in order to support their own child.

Argos transmits security and motivates children to develop the activities they need to develop logical thinking, through exercises and games, in which the need to solve simple problems is seen, based on analysis, the correct use of senses and to mentally assess the situation each child is facing.

Through movement games, socialization and relationships with other children and mothers are achieved, social norms necessary to integrate with others are learned. Playing with mothers contributes to the development of social skills, children learn to control themselves, to negotiate, to work as a team, to wait and to share. Children who play with their mothers have developed greater skills when it comes to relating to other children. Argos through crafts and DIY has managed to regulate stress levels and reinforce self-esteem, improve social skills and teamwork with children, enhancing their creativity, patience, concentration and psychomotor skills.Thanks to Argos and its huge love, children have further developed abilities and skills such as gross motor, fine motor, language development, tactile stimulation, visual stimulation, memory stimulation, cognitive abilities, visual-motor coordination to reinforce learning and literacy.

GASPAR LIFE STORY

Gaspar has regularly attended his therapies, his 6-year-old sister Lucy always accompanies him, at first, he was aggressive, distant in the presence of Argos, it was difficult for him to interact with Argos, in each session he worked on attention, follow-up of Instructions, among others. The aggressiveness gradually decreased and interest in Argos and involvement in the games arose, the company of his sister was of great help to achieve interaction with Argos.

During the work sessions Gaspar plays more with Argos, he likes to feed him with the red spoon (his favorite color) he likes to play with the balls, plasticine and legos.

Gaspar has neurological treatment that has helped him reduce his aggressiveness (there was a time when he hit his sister and mother when they didn't give him what he asked for). The parents are very accommodating in the treatment, thanks to this their advances have been significant.