Pet Cats

The beautiful thing about cats – as with all pets – is that they neither require nor expect normal modes of speech and communication that even young humans would expect when attempting to play with them. Cats exist in a world of sensory delight and exploration. What occurs to them to explore, test and invariably play with, they will do.

This is a tremendous advantage with youngsters afflicted with autism and Aspergers Syndrome.

The senses of scent, sound, motion attract and stimulate a cat and it could not care less if its young human owner has any kind of disability whatsoever – cats and kittens simply want to play and will try interminably at times to engage the humans in mock hunting or any motion that stimulates their sense of play and test through games.

No human child or adult short of being in an iron lung is capable of resisting engaging with these incomparably captivating felines, possibly the most fascinating of all of Gods creations.

The response and need to touch, cradle, hold and stroke them is overwhelming especially for a child and accordingly as we all know the automatic purring that comes forth from cats is an inherent, subtle cue to even the autistic child that its favorite pet creature reacts to her/his touch. This is huge and over time is in itself a repetition of behavior that can foster salutary, healthy responses from the child – input in, result out.

It is as though they are creations own little contribution as a ‘treatment ward’ or ‘in-built’ avenue of therapy that these various pets can avail such a good positive benefit for special needs individuals.

Verbal and social skills are complete non-starters as requirements for cats as they are for all the other pets. Yet non-verbal cognitive skills are inherently fostered in the child simply because they will detect the various overt physical responses given by the cats.

Cats are all about physical cues and body language and stimuli. They will continue time and again to elicit body signals and reactions throughout their lifetimes for the delight and pleasure of their human owners. This is highly desirable in the autistic for as they focus on their cats– and they will – they necessarily absorb knowledge of their subjects– knowledge that can be helpful in bridging towards other human beings.

The difference with cats as against another child as a friend is that the cats will hold a preeminent and reserved position in the psyche of an autistic person where-as it may not with a mere human playmate. This is because cats veer into the area ‘of’ a plaything more than a human which tends towards an entity that makes demands upon them.

Cats have this undeniable, nebulous, lure of fascination as their sheer reason for being. It can’t be matched or mimicked in these particular ways by any teaching program or dynamic especially in terms of time/cost parameters. They are a sure-bet, low cost recourse in uplifting those with special needs that is guaranteed to bring happiness – possibly even that precious commodity, a smile of contentment if not delight to an autistic or Aspergers syndrome child or adult.

Popular Pet Cats