Pull DogToy for Reaching

I found this dog toy (that looks like a horse)in the supermarket and just loved it because you can pull each of the legs repeatedly. There is a squeaker at the end of the leg so you can work on  squeezing the fingers, but I focused today on pulling.
 It gives great proprioceptive feedback, strengthens arms and hands and motivates children to reach out of the base of support. I had children pulling while facing forwards, sideways and backwards,  kneeling and standing on top of the horse.
I managed to catch a little bit on video.......

Strengthening Fingers Activity

This activity jumped out at me at the Dollar Store. It is a first aid band meant to get cold in the fridge and then strapped to the wrist to relieve pain. I immediately loved the feel when squeezing one end and watching the contents squish over to the other end. this is great for strengthening fingers, especially the index, middle fingers and thumb used to grasp a pencil. My very young hippotherapy clients found it fun and some loved it so much.
I was able to use it to reinforce (read- bribe) some of them to engage in tasks they normally don't do willingly- such as lie on the belly in prone extension.

February feels like April

I 'm sharing videos of my most enthusiastic client, a 3 year old (deleting her face) who loves to reach out of her base of support to reach for objects. I came across this Thomas the train electric tooth  brush and remembered how little kids love him. I attached a plastic piece from a dishwasher soap bottle that fit snugly over the toothbrush end. It didn't vibrate as much as I thought it would but I think some kids will like it. squeezing the pins strengthens fingers. The video shows the girl removing them, but later I helped her squeeze them to put back on.

I found the orange cone holder at Trader Joe's, asked for it and the nice cashier gave it to me.  Its used to hold flowers while shopping. I was very impressed with how my client was able to practically do sit ups while  reaching backwards to place the cone in the holder, great for core strength. 

  

Beautiful video of how a horse's unconditional love helped this young
woman with autism.

I love how this video compares progress after 6 months

American Hippotherapy Association Article

A Focus On Developing Hand Skills in Hippotherapy

This two year old did great following directions and repeating words. I figured out that she wouldn't repeat words unless I moved the holder out of her range, so that she had to repeat the color before I brought it closer for her to insert the pin inside. She seemed interested in naming colors, so that's what I worked on to evoke speech.  When finished she did great putting the pins inside the storage container.