CAT Intervention GroupCATNCT05950672
Development and Evaluation CAT and Youth
A study testing CAT Intervention Group in people with CAT Intervention Group and Control Group, run by Oregon State University at 1 site in United States.
Trial summary
This R21 provides a multidisciplinary One Health approach to developing and evaluating a novel Cat Assisted Training (CAT) animal assisted intervention (AAI) for early adolescents with developmental disabilities (DD) and their family cat. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 8 to 17 yearsHealthy volunteers can take part
- Conditions the study is for
- CAT Intervention Group, Control Group
- What is being tested?
- CAT Intervention Group
- Type of treatment
- Lifestyle or therapy programme
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 36 participants
- Where
- 1 siteUnited States
- Study dates
- 30 May 2023to 21 Aug 2025
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- Yes, posted in the registrySummary in the doctors' view
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 8 to 17 years
- All sexes
- Healthy volunteers accepted
- Child
Who may be able to join
- Child with a developmental disability per parental report.
- Family owns a family cat.
Who cannot join
- Can not follow instructions.
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country.
About this study
Official title: The Development and Evaluation of a Novel Cat Assisted Training (CAT) Intervention for Youth With Developmental Disabilities and Their Family Cat
This R21 provides a multidisciplinary One Health approach to developing and evaluating a novel Cat Assisted Training (CAT) animal assisted intervention (AAI) for early adolescents with developmental disabilities (DD) and their family cat. Cat social behavior and welfare is heavily influenced by human behavior and training, making it highly likely that cats would also benefit from this program. There remains a critical need for further empirical evaluation of AAI practices, especially those that target the specific needs of youth with disabilities. Further extending the development and evaluation of activity-based AAIs beyond those that include dogs and horses also helps address the critical need to consider and include diverse human participants, creating new equitable opportunities for AAI involvement to those who may have access to cats, but not dogs and horses (due to practical, health, cultural, socio-economic, or other personal reasons).
Read the detailed description
This R21 provides a multidisciplinary One Health approach to developing and evaluating a novel Cat Assisted Training (CAT) animal assisted intervention (AAI) for early adolescents with developmental disabilities (DD) and their family cat. The novel CAT intervention will be a 6-week cat walking and training program for youth 8 - 17 years old. Participants will learn how to respond appropriately to cat body language, practice fear-free and positive reinforcement-based handling, and training skills, and how to fit a harness and walk their cats on leash. For the human participants, skills and behaviors learned during the intervention are expected to promote and support long-term physical activity, social wellbeing, and lasting feelings of responsibility even after the intervention itself has concluded. We also expect these experiences to improve the relationship between the child participant and household cat, and in turn, reduce cat stress in the child's presence and increase cat sociability and indicators of behavioral wellbeing. Because each child will participate with a cat already living in their household, this program will create a unique active partnership between child and cat that considers the health and wellbeing of both partners. Recent pilot work by PIs Udell \& MacDonald has revealed physical and social-emotional improvements in children with and without developmental disabilities following a pet dog-partner based AAI. Dogs also showed increased sociability and attachment towards their child partner after AAI participation. Work by PI Udell \& Vitale has demonstrated that many cats are highly social and form strong attachment bonds with humans, that cats can be successfully trained a wide range of behaviors, including leash walking, and that cat training classes result in high participant retention rates. Cat social behavior and welfare is also heavily influenced by human behavior and training, making it highly likely that cats would also benefit from this program. There remains a critical need for further empirical evaluation of AAI practices, especially those that target the specific needs of at-risk populations and youth. Further extending the development and evaluation of activity-based AAIs beyond those that include dogs and horses also helps address the critical need to consider and include diverse human participants, creating new equitable opportunities for AAI involvement to those who may have access to cats, but not dogs and horses (due to practical, health, cultural, socio-economic, or other personal reasons).
- Conditions
- CAT Intervention Group, Control Group
- Being tested
- CAT Intervention Group
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
CAT Intervention GroupBehavioural
The experimental group will take part in the CAT intervention after baseline assessments. All cat-training methods will be positive reinforcement based, using owner-approved food, toys and social reinforcers (e.g. petting).
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| CAT Intervention Group | Experimental | The experimental group will take part in the CAT intervention (Table 1) after baseline assessments. All cat-training methods will be positive reinforcement based, using owner-approved food, toys and social reinforcers (e.g. petting). Receives: Behavioral: CAT Intervention Group |
| CAT Control Group | No intervention | Control participants will not participate in the CAT intervention. After the completion of the third assessment (end of proposal-related data collection), control participants will be offered the opportunity to participate in cat training classes. |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Number of Participants Whose Cats Changed From Insecure to Secure Attachment Classification From T1 to T3
Cats in the intervention group participated in a structured three-phase assessment: two minutes in the testing room with their child owner, two minutes alone, and then a reunion phase when the child returns. All sessions were video recorded. Two independent raters classified each cat's attachment style using a predefined behavioral ethogram, with primary emphasis on the cat's response during the reunion. Possible attachment classifications include Secure, Insecure-Ambivalent, Insecure-Avoidant, Insecure-Disorganized. Data presented describe within-cat change in attachment classification from T1 to T3, specifically the shift from insecure (inclusive of ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized) to secure attachment.
Measured: T3 is approximately 14 months after T1 (baseline).
Secondary outcomes (1)
Number of Participants Who Participated in Walking Their Cat at T2
The Cat Care Responsibility Inventory "Walk" variable reflected responses to the item, "Usually walks cat." Children indicated the household member for whom this statement was most true (e.g., self, mother, father, sibling, or other). For analysis, responses were coded as a binary variable such that s child either participated in walking the cat (alone or with others in the household) or did not. These binary outcomes were then compared across time points and participant groups.
Measured: T2 is approximately 6 weeks after T1 (baseline).
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted18 Jul 2023
- Study start30 May 2023
- Primary completion29 Jun 2025
- Study completion21 Aug 2025
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Posted resultsParticipant flow, outcome measures and adverse events reported by the sponsor.
- Other trials for CAT Intervention GroupStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Enrolment
- 36 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- Oregon State University
- Sponsor type
- University, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
- Responsible party
- Principal investigator, Megan MacDonald, Oregon State University
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05950672
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- HE-2022-29
- Other IDs
- 1R21HD109853-01, 5R21HD109853-02
- Acronym
- CAT
- Status last verified
- Dec 2025
- First submitted
- 11 Jul 2023
- Last updated
- 13 Apr 2026
- Results posted
- Yes, on ClinicalTrials.gov
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- FDA-regulated drug
- No
- FDA-regulated device
- No
- Individual data sharing
- No: The proposed research will involve a small sample (target N = 30 participants) of youth with DD within a narrow age range recruited from Corvallis and the surrounding counties/ communities. Participants must also have a pet cat to participate in this study. Even with the removal of all identifiers, we believe that it would be difficult to protect the identities of subjects given the small region of recruitment and possible identifying characteristics of subjects and their family cats. Given that some participants may exhibit anxiety, depression or other behavioral and emotional disorders we plan to take every measure to ensure their identify is protected. Therefore, we are not planning to share non-aggregate data.
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 13 Apr 2026. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- The Development and Evaluation of a Novel Cat Assisted Training (CAT) Intervention for Youth With Developmental Disabilities and Their Family Cat
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT05950672
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- CAT / HE-2022-29
- Conditions
- CAT Intervention Group, Control Group
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Enrolment
- 36 participants (actual)
- Lead sponsor
- Oregon State UniversityUniversity, hospital or other
- Collaborators
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
- Study start
- 30 May 2023 (actual)
- Primary completion
- 29 Jun 2025 (actual)
- Study completion
- 21 Aug 2025 (actual)
- First posted
- 18 Jul 2023 (actual)
- Results
- Posted 13 Apr 2026
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
This R21 provides a multidisciplinary One Health approach to developing and evaluating a novel Cat Assisted Training (CAT) animal assisted intervention (AAI) for early adolescents with developmental disabilities (DD) and their family cat. Cat social behavior and welfare is heavily influenced by human behavior and training, making it highly likely that cats would also benefit from this program. There remains a critical need for further empirical evaluation of AAI practices, especially those that target the specific needs of youth with disabilities. Further extending the development and evaluation of activity-based AAIs beyond those that include dogs and horses also helps address the critical need to consider and include diverse human participants, creating new equitable opportunities for AAI involvement to those who may have access to cats, but not dogs and horses (due to practical, health, cultural, socio-economic, or other personal reasons).
Detailed description
This R21 provides a multidisciplinary One Health approach to developing and evaluating a novel Cat Assisted Training (CAT) animal assisted intervention (AAI) for early adolescents with developmental disabilities (DD) and their family cat. The novel CAT intervention will be a 6-week cat walking and training program for youth 8 - 17 years old. Participants will learn how to respond appropriately to cat body language, practice fear-free and positive reinforcement-based handling, and training skills, and how to fit a harness and walk their cats on leash. For the human participants, skills and behaviors learned during the intervention are expected to promote and support long-term physical activity, social wellbeing, and lasting feelings of responsibility even after the intervention itself has concluded. We also expect these experiences to improve the relationship between the child participant and household cat, and in turn, reduce cat stress in the child's presence and increase cat sociability and indicators of behavioral wellbeing. Because each child will participate with a cat already living in their household, this program will create a unique active partnership between child and cat that considers the health and wellbeing of both partners. Recent pilot work by PIs Udell \& MacDonald has revealed physical and social-emotional improvements in children with and without developmental disabilities following a pet dog-partner based AAI. Dogs also showed increased sociability and attachment towards their child partner after AAI participation. Work by PI Udell \& Vitale has demonstrated that many cats are highly social and form strong attachment bonds with humans, that cats can be successfully trained a wide range of behaviors, including leash walking, and that cat training classes result in high participant retention rates. Cat social behavior and welfare is also heavily influenced by human behavior and training, making it highly likely that cats would also benefit from this program. There remains a critical need for further empirical evaluation of AAI practices, especially those that target the specific needs of at-risk populations and youth. Further extending the development and evaluation of activity-based AAIs beyond those that include dogs and horses also helps address the critical need to consider and include diverse human participants, creating new equitable opportunities for AAI involvement to those who may have access to cats, but not dogs and horses (due to practical, health, cultural, socio-economic, or other personal reasons).
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Single group
- Masking
- None (open label)
- Number of arms
- 2
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| CAT Intervention Group | Experimental | Behavioral: CAT Intervention GroupThe experimental group will take part in the CAT intervention (Table 1) after baseline assessments. All cat-training methods will be positive reinforcement based, using owner-approved food, toys and social reinforcers (e.g. petting). |
| CAT Control Group | No intervention | –Control participants will not participate in the CAT intervention. After the completion of the third assessment (end of proposal-related data collection), control participants will be offered the opportunity to participate in cat training classes. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 8 to 17 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepted
- Age groups
- Child
Key inclusion criteria (2 listed)
- Child with a developmental disability per parental report.
- Family owns a family cat.
Key exclusion criteria (1 listed)
- Can not follow instructions.
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| CAT Intervention GroupThe experimental group will take part in the CAT intervention after baseline assessments. All cat-training methods will be positive reinforcement based, using owner-approved food, toys and social reinforcers (e.g. petting). | Behavioural | CAT Intervention Group |
Primary outcome
Number of Participants Whose Cats Changed From Insecure to Secure Attachment Classification From T1 to T3
Time frame: T3 is approximately 14 months after T1 (baseline).
Cats in the intervention group participated in a structured three-phase assessment: two minutes in the testing room with their child owner, two minutes alone, and then a reunion phase when the child returns. All sessions were video recorded. Two independent raters classified each cat's attachment style using a predefined behavioral ethogram, with primary emphasis on the cat's response during the reunion. Possible attachment classifications include Secure, Insecure-Ambivalent, Insecure-Avoidant, Insecure-Disorganized. Data presented describe within-cat change in attachment classification from T1 to T3, specifically the shift from insecure (inclusive of ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized) to secure attachment.
1 secondary outcome
Number of Participants Who Participated in Walking Their Cat at T2
Time frame: T2 is approximately 6 weeks after T1 (baseline).
Results and safety
Loading the posted results from ClinicalTrials.gov…
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 13 Apr 2026.
- Posted resultsParticipant flow, baseline, all outcome measures and adverse events.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: No. The proposed research will involve a small sample (target N = 30 participants) of youth with DD within a narrow age range recruited from Corvallis and the surrounding counties/ communities. Participants must also have a pet cat to participate in this study. Even with the removal of all identifiers, we believe that it would be difficult to protect the identities of subjects given the small region of recruitment and possible identifying characteristics of subjects and their family cats. Given that some participants may exhibit anxiety, depression or other behavioral and emotional disorders we plan to take every measure to ensure their identify is protected. Therefore, we are not planning to share non-aggregate data.
Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part. This study is not recruiting at the moment.
The record lists no contact. Use the official record to reach the sponsor.
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing CAT Intervention Group in people with CAT Intervention Group and Control Group, run by Oregon State University at 1 site in United States.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 2 inclusion and 1 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 13 Apr 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
Yes. Results are posted in the registry (first posted 13 Apr 2026). A summary is in the For doctors view, and the full results are on ClinicalTrials.gov.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Number of Participants Whose Cats Changed From Insecure to Secure Attachment Classification From T1 to T3 (time frame: T3 is approximately 14 months after T1 (baseline).). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 13 Apr 2026.