This is a nice article about the effect of pets on children. There is a great deal of interest about the benefit of animals in therapy for Human health. I would like to also see studies about the effects on the pet when paired with a human who life is experiencing difficulty.  It is allot to expect of animals to become substitute human therapists i.e. replace the effect of good human to human attention. Are we replacing the effects of “good human social input and bonding” with “animal-human bonding” because we do not  provide the input from a human. I would like to see studies that compare the effect of; a human v.s. an animal as the  giver of attention/time/activity to subjects of these studies. Then we can have a better idea of whether there is an animal specific effect or are we observing the effect of receiving allot of undivided focused attention.

Medical News: Pets Boost Social Skills in Kids with Autism – in Neurology, Autism from MedPage Today.