**5. Conclusions**

The study showed certain long-term effects of dog-assisted therapy in the functioning of children with mild intellectual disabilities, aged 10–13 years. The results achieved by the children in the DAT group in some cases were significantly improved, as reflected by measurements performed over time. There were no significant differences in the baseline results and in the tests performed at the end of the therapy program between the children in the DAT group and the controls. Ultimately, however, at the two-month follow-up, the DAT group achieved better results than the controls in motor planning (postural imitation test) and in the sense of touch, attention, and concentration (finger identification test). Despite the fact that the measurement performed at the end of the therapy did not show significant differences between the DAT group and the controls, the results acquired at the two-month follow-up reflected long-term gains in the treatment group in the domain of motor planning (postural imitation test). Our findings sugges<sup>t</sup> that dog-assisted interventions may effectively be used as a complementary treatment in children with physical and mental disability. The acquired results may be of importance for clinical practice since they present evidence confirming long-term effectiveness of DAT and constitute an encouragemen<sup>t</sup> for introducing DAT as a supplementary method, which may be applied along with conventional therapies in children with mild intellectual disability in facilities providing treatment to this population. This fact should be taken into account by those designing therapeutic programs in facilities providing treatment to this population of children.

**Author Contributions:** A.W.-N.: conceptualized and designed the study, performed the research study; wrote the main manuscript, and approved the final manuscript as submitted.; A.G.: conceptualized and designed the study, carried out the formal analysis, wrote a major part of the manuscript, supervised, and approved the final manuscript as submitted; J.D.: performed the research study, drafted the initial manuscript; B.P., M.D.: performed the statistical analysis, critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Ethics Committee Commission of the Medical Faculty (4 February 2017).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** Data available in a publicly accessible repository.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
