Structuring the intervention environment

When we are working with people with attention deficit, we must have always a concern: the environment. Talking about our arena facility, I present you some concerns and strategies:

-Avoid times of day which have a lot of riders/people around (eg, new riders learning with their instructor makes a lot of noise and movement; school lessons; people working on the arena ground)

-Avoid meal times of horses - the horse is likely to be very reactive;

-When you ask the task to client, do it facing a wall or a place where there is nobody;

-Remove all visual distractors from arena such as: poles, wings, spires, buckets, balls

-Try not to present all material you are going to work with - I have a big plastic bag where I place all the material;

-Close the gate so the client and horse knows their boundaries and there is less temptations;

-If necessary, ask people around to make no noise.

Emotional and behavioral challenges

The disordered development probably means a rowdy childhood. Its impact in social interaction usually vary betwen excessive shyness and hiperactivity. From all of the most common carachteristics, the worst are the oppositive behaviors.

"With Autism on Horseback"

This presentation was done by me during November 2011 at University Fernando Pessoa - Oporto, Portugal. The event was a workshop called "Autism Voices" wich included some oral presentations on non traditional therapies with autism. I decided to call "With Autism on Horseback" to mine. I hope you like!

A cool video about hippotherapy benefits

EATHIPPO project

It is a pleasure to introduce you my new project called EATHIPPO.

The "Equine Assisted Therapy and Hippotherapy" comprises some phases.

First I'm developing a database of activities for the following main areas:

Main areas
Communication, Language and Speech
Social
Cognition
Motor
Balance
Sensory integration

Some activities may be for one or more main areas. Each main area has major and minor goals depending on target area and client skills/assessent. This is very important since we are talking about a strategy to therapy intervention - and NOT just equine assisted activities.

Our Miniature Threapy Pony

This is Caesar v.d. Kloosterhoeve - a 27" miniature pony. Now he is 3 yo and he lives with us since 1 yo. Actually, Caesar came from Holand where he was born.

The trainee we are doing is about desensitization - he can handle with screams, jumps, many children around him and a lot of things more.
The goal to this pony is to be a therapy horse in equine assisted therapy/activities, mainly leading.

Attention, Stop and Do

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex one. To work with children with autism we need passion! Without it there will be no efficacy. From all the medical conditions usual to the hippotherapy domain, I believe autism is the one that takes more advantage. My first case with severe ASD (five years old) started three months ago. The child was not able to be in the same place for more than four seconds. To put the helmet on his head, we needed to contain him in a corner! The transition to horseback lasted two sessions, but was easy - bubbles were a great help!! Once on horseback, we were forced to walk, otherwise the child started tantrum. Nowadays, after twelve sessions, the child increased his eye contact from avoiding to +/-15 seconds - obviously when he likes the activity!!
His oral/verbal imitation is poor, but we can get it sometimes! The first goal was to be calm when the horse was with no motion - we got it mainly with exterior walks. Then, my partner, and me established the second goal - the child should say "go" based on verbal repetition, to induce horse walk! Consistency and persistence are keys/triggers when we are working. Sometimes it is difficult, but two sessions later, the child said it with NO clues!

MOTIVATION is, undoubtedly, one of the keys!