Hippotherapy can help those with autism spectrum disorders, sensory processing disorder, hypotonia, cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy.
IT ALL started with pony rides.
In the late 1980s, Laurie Landy began taking her preschool special needs students to the Monroe equestrian farm she co-owned.
Then an occupational therapist in the Freehold Township school district, Landy thought that spending a day at the 200-acre Congress Hill Farm would allow the children to get outside, interact with the horses and have some fun riding ponies.
Then, something miraculous happened.
A little girl, who had been nonverbal all year, suddenly began singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."
Landy was stunned. She wondered what it was about the experience -- the horse's movements, the farm's sights and smells, the animal's calming nature? -- that stimulated the child to sing. She contemplated whether such an undertaking could help stimulate the use of other muscles as it had the girl's vocal muscles.
So she invited a private client with cerebral palsy to the farm. "I just wanted to see what would happen," she says. The boy's mom brought him to the farm for riding sessions and, after a few weeks, he began walking without crutches.
"That's when I knew I had to study this."
"This" is hippotherapy, a program to improve a person's strength, coordination and balance through their interaction with a horse in motion.
Hippotherapy can help those with autism spectrum disorders, sensory processing disorder, hypotonia, cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy. And it can be used with children who have developmental delays and who need encouragement to catch up with their peers.
Landy now devotes all her time to hippotherapy at Special Strides, the therapeutic riding center she founded in 1998 working with a couple of borrowed horses. She now has 17 therapy horses, employs a staff of 28 and sees 145 clients a week, both children and adults, on the Monroe farm.
During a 45-minute hippotherapy session, a horse can make as many as 2,500 movements. At the same time, a therapist can have its rider work with a toy or practice staying upright and centered. The rider also can be turned in a variety of directions to promote better balance and posture control, and to build core strength.
"The horse influences the sensory system, as well as the motor system," says Susie Rehr, a physical therapist and hippotherapy clinical specialist, who has been at Special Strides almost since the beginning. She now serves as the program's co-director. Rehr says the sensory system helps to regulate emotions and behavior and the motor system controls movement.
The consistent rhythmic nature of the horse's gait, she adds, helps the rider get into the "just right zone" -- boosting emotional stability, attention and focus, as well as speech and motor skills.
Hippotherapy uses the horse, whose pelvis and gait are similar to a human's, to improve the basic functioning of a person's vestibular system, the section of the inner ear that controls balance. The horse also helps with spatial orientation.
"It's this three-dimensional experience where you understand who you are, where you're grounded, how things relate to your body," Landy says. "And if you understand those relationships to the world around you, then you can transfer that into learning, play and taking care of yourself. That transfers even in writing. If you're writing the letter 'b,' you know where the line goes on the page because you understand where you are."
More than half of Special Strides' clients receive occupational or physical therapy, or equine-facilitated psychotherapy. The remainder participate in educational and recreational programs, such as carriage driving or adaptive riding, during which a certified therapeutic riding instructor helps an individual with special needs to learn how to ride a horse.
Many clients who discover hippotherapy have already been through traditional physical rehabilitation for years.
"They get a little bit burned out," says Gina Taylor, an occupational therapist and director of therapy services at Mane Stream, a nonprofit equine therapy facility in Oldwick. "Children and adults are naturally drawn to interact with the horses," she says.
Hippotherapy, from the Greek "hippos," meaning "horse," began in Germany and Austria in the 1960s as physical therapists integrated horses into their sessions. In the 1980s, American physical therapists and occupational therapists began learning the method.
"The horse, and the equine setting, the barn -- it's naturally motivating," says Meredith Bazaar, a speech language pathologist at Starlight Farm in Ringwood. "And there's so much opportunity for natural language to occur. These are real-life conversations."
When Sheri Marino, owner and founder of Rocking Horse Rehab in West Orange, first discovered the horse as a tool for speech in 1993, only Ruth Dismuke-Blakely, in New Mexico, was using horses for speech therapy. Marino trained with her after witnessing the benefits.
Marino first put Russell Hale, of Warren, on a horse when he was in preschool. He'd recently been diagnosed with autism and his mom, Peg Hale, had researched treatments.
"I was intent on reading everything and finding out as much as I could," says Peg Hale. A friend told her about the benefits of adaptive riding at Somerset Hills Handicapped Riding Center (now Mane Stream). Hale brought an idea to Marino.
"She said, 'I think you should find a horse and do speech therapy on a horse,' " Marino says. "I thought she was joking. I'd never heard of hippotherapy." But Hale persisted and Marino agreed. Somerset Hills allowed them to borrow a horse.
After two discouraging attempts at finding the right horse for Russell, they saw results in the third session. Marino says, "This kid made sounds that I had never heard him make before. And I thought, 'This mom was on to something.' "
Marino began bringing speech clients to Somerset Hills. The facility gave her office space and access to horses, and she stayed for eight years. Then, she opened Rocking Horse Rehab in 2001.
Russell Hale, now 26, is in his final semester of college in Denver, studying to be a screenwriter. "I think it was something to connect to, honestly," he says. "I loved that horse and often rode him. I remember cleaning and brushing (Freckles). I feel it was an emotional benefit."
"The most immediate noticeable positive development was in his speech," says Peg Hale. "But we did see overall improvements in his behavior and in his physicality."
She says the therapy was an important factor in her son's improved development and success in school.
Hippotherapy helps with speech, as well as physical and occupational therapy because it addresses certain fundamentals crucial to each effort, Marino says.
"All three disciplines are working on postural control and stability," she says. "All three disciplines are using the horse's movement to work on adaptive responses. All three disciplines are using the horse to address sensory issues."
"Communication doesn't stop just with the mouth," says Bazaar, of Starlight Farm, who also has a speech and language clinic in Ringwood. "Your whole body has to be in sync and working together."
Therapy horses are carefully selected and trained. The legs must be symmetrical -- all equal in length -- so that the rider gets the full benefit of a horse's movements and balance. Horses also need a smooth gait and great stamina.
Their transitions between movements need to be consistent. The youngest therapy horse at Special Strides is 7, because horses must be old enough to handle the weight of their riders and behaviorally mature.
Most New Jersey hippotherapy facilities work with children as young as 2.
Rehr says a majority of horseback riding programs start at age 4 or 5, when a child is able to learn a riding skill. But therapists can start with younger children, she says, because they're trained to adjust for safety and success.
When pairing a horse and rider, height and weight are important -- particularly for the youngest children, who need a horse compatible with their small bodies.
Safety, too, is a primary concern -- for both clients and horses. "Does this child have any fears or behaviors that might be a concern to my horse?" says Taylor, of Mane Stream. "Is this someone who has a seizure disorder? Is this someone who vocalizes a lot?"
When an individual is paired with the right well-trained horse, hippotherapy is effective, Rehr says.
"There is nothing else that I could do as a physical therapist that would provide that many opportunities to learn. And to learn in a manner in which it absolutely mimics what you need to do in real life."
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