Charlie's Quest for Equine Therapy
Our mission is to raise funding for my four year old son to attend Equine Therapy. He is on the autistic spectrum and his motor skills are severely delayed. This therapy will help him gain muscle tone and skills that have not been able to be met as of yet using something that he seems to relate to well. Please take some time to share some joy with my wonderful little boy and help us meet our goal to provide this unique therapy for him.
Research just completed through the Horse and Human Research Foundation found Equine Assisted Activities to have a positive impact on children with autism. Children participated in simple activities with a horse for just over an hour a week for 12 weeks. The therapists focused on teaching the children how to care for and ride the horse and very little on social or communication skills. The results showed significant improvements in:
• Sensory Seeking
• Emotional Reactivity
• Distractibility
• Sensory Sensitivity
• Awareness
• Tolerance for Sensory Input
• Availability for Learning
• Social Cognition
• Communication
• Mannerisms and
• Social Motivation
how does riding improve sensory and social capacities?
The authors, Margaret Bass and Maria Llabre, offer three suggestions:
1. The multi-sensory input of riding a horse somehow improves sensory processing.
2. The relationship created with the horse is a factor
3. The child is motivated by riding and so performs better
Riding, just like other whole-body physical activities, is certainly a multi-sensory experience. Many researchers have found this to be important for children with autism. Recent understanding of the neurology of autism would also support this explanation. Most researchers now believe that autism results from a disconnected brain - that long-distance connections between brain regions are not as efficient as the short-distance connections in the brains of those with autism. If this is the case it makes sense then that engaging a activities that require distant brain regions to talk to one another would strengthen these underdeveloped connections. When you ride you are not only smelling, feeling, hearing, seeing but also balancing and moving in all planes. This gets the ever so important vestibular system activated and working alongside the other sensory systems.
Many other physical activities can of course provide this type of sensory input. The additional benefit of doing activities with a horse (or other animal) is that your child can build a relationship with a horse. My experience of children with autism is not that they aren't motivated to want to relate to people - they just often don't know how to relate to people. Animals can be a lot easier to figure out! A horse has no judgments about your child and what s/he should be able to do. A horse has very few expectations about how your child should act. A horse communicates non-verbally and doesn't insist on using language at all.
Most importantly, a well trained horse is responsive to your child. This is the key to their relationship. Very quickly a child will learn that when s/he moves, the horse moves in response. The child starts to realize he can 'talk' to the horse with his body and that the horse talks back! Wonderful! They develop a relationship and the child gains valuable experience in back and forth, reciprocal communication. This is the power that other physical activities don't offer - unless they are done in an interactive way with another person.
This two factors - multi-sensory, whole-body participation and reciprocal relationship - are powerful. Remember these children only spent an hour a week with their horses and showed significant changes as compared to other children who did not spent any time riding. But you don't have to take your child riding to use this understanding. Any game that asks your child to engage with you in a way that gets his/her whole body moving and feeling will be beneficial. I do still think there is some magic to spending time with animals that our science hasn't yet explained so take any opportunity you have to have your child interact with well cared for and trained animals.
Research just completed through the Horse and Human Research Foundation found Equine Assisted Activities to have a positive impact on children with autism. Children participated in simple activities with a horse for just over an hour a week for 12 weeks. The therapists focused on teaching the children how to care for and ride the horse and very little on social or communication skills. The results showed significant improvements in:
• Sensory Seeking
• Emotional Reactivity
• Distractibility
• Sensory Sensitivity
• Awareness
• Tolerance for Sensory Input
• Availability for Learning
• Social Cognition
• Communication
• Mannerisms and
• Social Motivation
how does riding improve sensory and social capacities?
The authors, Margaret Bass and Maria Llabre, offer three suggestions:
1. The multi-sensory input of riding a horse somehow improves sensory processing.
2. The relationship created with the horse is a factor
3. The child is motivated by riding and so performs better
Riding, just like other whole-body physical activities, is certainly a multi-sensory experience. Many researchers have found this to be important for children with autism. Recent understanding of the neurology of autism would also support this explanation. Most researchers now believe that autism results from a disconnected brain - that long-distance connections between brain regions are not as efficient as the short-distance connections in the brains of those with autism. If this is the case it makes sense then that engaging a activities that require distant brain regions to talk to one another would strengthen these underdeveloped connections. When you ride you are not only smelling, feeling, hearing, seeing but also balancing and moving in all planes. This gets the ever so important vestibular system activated and working alongside the other sensory systems.
Many other physical activities can of course provide this type of sensory input. The additional benefit of doing activities with a horse (or other animal) is that your child can build a relationship with a horse. My experience of children with autism is not that they aren't motivated to want to relate to people - they just often don't know how to relate to people. Animals can be a lot easier to figure out! A horse has no judgments about your child and what s/he should be able to do. A horse has very few expectations about how your child should act. A horse communicates non-verbally and doesn't insist on using language at all.
Most importantly, a well trained horse is responsive to your child. This is the key to their relationship. Very quickly a child will learn that when s/he moves, the horse moves in response. The child starts to realize he can 'talk' to the horse with his body and that the horse talks back! Wonderful! They develop a relationship and the child gains valuable experience in back and forth, reciprocal communication. This is the power that other physical activities don't offer - unless they are done in an interactive way with another person.
This two factors - multi-sensory, whole-body participation and reciprocal relationship - are powerful. Remember these children only spent an hour a week with their horses and showed significant changes as compared to other children who did not spent any time riding. But you don't have to take your child riding to use this understanding. Any game that asks your child to engage with you in a way that gets his/her whole body moving and feeling will be beneficial. I do still think there is some magic to spending time with animals that our science hasn't yet explained so take any opportunity you have to have your child interact with well cared for and trained animals.