Hippotherapy

Utilizing horses for opening communication pathways, building relationships, improving listening comprehension and oral expression, pragmatics, social language, articulation, fluency, voice and oral motor.

Speech therapists, Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists use the horse to engage sensory, neuromotor and cognitive systems to promote functional outcomes.

In a typical therapy session, 15 to 25 minutes of equine movement represents 1500 to to 2500 neuromotor inputs to the patient, resulting in complex motor learning and helps patients organize brain functioning for increased learning capability.

Strength, muscle coordination and sensory processing, used for motor and speech and use of fine motor skills for activities of daily living and general attention to tasks have all been shown to be positively impacted by equine movement. In addition, increased motivation and participation in treatment and social/emotional benefits have been reported.

The movement of the horse as a treatment tool include the following:

• • more normalized arousal states, muscle tone and postural support
  • improved respiratory function for voice and fluency support
  • increased accuracy of speech sound production
  • improved oral motor function and decreased drooling
  • increased length and complexity of verbal output
  • improved verbal response time and initiation of communication behaviors
  • improved performance on language reasoning tasks

(Adapted from American Hippotherapy Association – 2015)

Therapy Services

Speech Therapy

Private therapy focuses on receptive/expressive language, articulation, social skills, fluency, and voice.