Leg kicks to strengthen legs and motor planning

Performing leg kicks are great for developing trunk and leg strength as the child leans forward and kicks her legs behind. The vaulting circingle has two handles to hold- so the child needs to use both hands. This is a great activity for children with weakness on one side or a side neglect because they will have to use both hands in order to do this.

As she leans forward to one side of the mane, her legs go up and she clicks her heels behind. It is actually easier to do while the horse is moving, but tricky to get comfortable with sequencing the movements while balancing.






Barbara Smith, M.S., OTR/L author of, The Recycling Occupational Therapist
Horseot.com

Photo courtesy of Mary Hurley at Divinity Farm

A Fake Horse at Home Can be Fun, Too

A Fake Therapy Horse at home- next best thing to hippotherapy-



Barbara Smith, M.S., OTR/L author of, The Recycling Occupational Therapist
Horseot.com

Is Your Hippotherapy Horse Happy?

During hippotherapy sessions, I get so focused on my client interactions, I can easily forget about the big animal under the child. Since taking riding lessons with Maria Hurley at Divinity Farm, I have been tuning in more to the horse since she is always pointing out her own pony's moods.

Here, Heidi is relaxed with one hind leg off the ground. Her ears were floppy and she was makes cute munching movements with her mouth. When a horse is relaxed she has her head a bit lowered with ears slightly back and her spine is loosened. All this while being desensitized to a vibrating toy with flashing lights!

Barbara Smith, M.S., OTR/L author of, The Recycling Occupational Therapist
Horseot.com

Princess Wand to stabilize child with Cerebral palsy

Some nice success today with the Princess Wand toy pictured below. It is a plastic toy that vibrates and has flashing lights. A two year old with CP was able to put rings over the top (as I had been doing with the other kids all morning) then he wrapped both hands around it in front of the anticast handle to stabilize himself and his posture was perfect for a good lap. The only problem was that it was exhausting for me to keep it in position- he was pulling so hard on it. Grasping a ball has worked well to help him stabilize his shoulders and trunk in the same way. But opening his hands to grasp this toy seemed to break the extensor tone even more.

I started teaching a few kids that they can get more rings to place over the wand by pulling reins/stopping next to them on the trail so that I could get them for them. ( I attached a couple of rings on back of a paddock wall). I think this will be a very motivational method to encourage rein use.

The "rings" are cut out of laundry bottles, but I like them more than real rings since they are flimsy and take two hands to use.

Barbara Smith, M.S., OTR/L author of, The Recycling Occupational Therapist
Horseot.com

Leg kicks to strengthen legs and motor planning

Here is a picture of me doing leg kicks. I am grasping the vaulting handles, moving my head forward to one side of the mane and lifting up my legs to kick them together.

Some higher functioning children might be able to do this to strengthen their legs and it would also work on motor planning since it takes good planning to time the kick right after my head goes down.

Today I had nice success with my princess wand toy that has a light that flashes at the top and vibrates. I cut orange and yellow rings out of laundry bottles and have the kids put the rings over the wand. These rings are a bit flimsy, so I ended up holding the wand while they used both hands to bring the rings over the top. One little boy with autism was particularly excited to do this, he was willing to do this activity while facing sideways and backwards (not his favorite positions). He also tolerated kneeling while I counted to ten with trot rewards afterward.

Here is a photo of the princess wand that I took while holding the laundry bottle ring. The "rings" aren't exactly round, more rectangular, but they pretty much take two hands to manipulate which is a good thing.

I attached them to the walls with velcro since some of the kids could pull the reins when they saw one. Then I would retrieved it from the wall to use in the activity.






Barbara Smith, M.S., OTR/L author of, The Recycling Occupational Therapist
Horseot.com

Hippotherapy Brochure

In preparation for my Hippotherapy presentation at the Massachusetts Occupational Therapy Conference in October, I have made an informational brochure which others are welcome to print from my website. It is at:
Hippotherapy Brochure


Barbara Smith, M.S., OTR/L author of, The Recycling Occupational Therapist
Horseot.com

Nesting Cups for Bilateral Hand Use

Inserting cups inside each other may be one of the easiest bilateral activities to make. I attached 5 yogurt cups to the walls with velcro and put numbers on them. I haven't worked with the kids yet who can read the numbers but I am planning to work on this soon.

One child loved the idea of pulling the reins to stop when he he saw a cup on the wall and then I handed it to him to insert until he had a stack of 5 cups. I tried to attach two of them on the trail but realized that I needed stronger velcro to have that work. It will be great to have something on the trails that they can look for and then manipulate.

As simple as inserting one cup inside another seems, 3 children found this very challenging because they needed to stabilize the stack while inserting another cup. This activity is great for developing some basic stabilization skills.

Other success: a girl with autism did her first imitation with me, imitating holding her hand over her mouth to make a wha, wha, wha sound. She tends to sign "more" when she wants to get moving and I am strying to get her to point so that the "more" sign doesn't become generalized to mean too many things. So, I am thrilled that she can do this new imitation with me.

Barbara Smith, M.S., OTR/L author of, The Recycling Occupational Therapist
Horseot.com

Ice cream rein grasp

Its rewarding to see some of my kids grasping the reins with "ice cream cone" hands. They seem to get this concept.

Other successes today: A child who 6 months ago was so gravitationally insecure he wouldn't reach to touch the mane, today did squat to stand 7 times. He was able to stand up to reach for a ball, then squat to toss it into the basket.

Another boy learned to remove the neck strap from the horse and hang it up on a hook with only verbal cues. What amazes me is that he can do this without looking at what he is doing. He also closed the fasteners on a puzzle that has fasteners attached to the pieces. He did the snap, buckle and button and needed a little help to connect the zipper. I think that starting the zipper will be the most challenging. I have some objectives that don't really seem appropriate for the hippotherapy setting. But the insurance companies like these functional goals.

Barbara Smith, M.S., OTR/L author of, The Recycling Occupational Therapist
Horseot.com

Two children today had the cognitive and language skills to do the following activity: I attached pictures in a small photo album and velcro so that the matching pictures could be attached below.

I used this during a squat to stand activity. As the child squatted I handed her the two pictures. When she stood up, she placed each of the two pictures below the match. It was nice to have a cognitively challenging activity to do with two year olds who understand the concept of matching pictures. They were so focused on the activity, I think they were less concerned about the fact that they were standing up on a horse.

Barbara Smith, M.S., OTR/L author of, The Recycling Occupational Therapist
Horseot.com