Activities on the trail

I decided to have fun today while working on tactile or touch discrimination. I put two toy animals in each of 6 bottles that I hung from branches. I work with one 3year old who loves to guess what is in containers so she was really excited when I  showed her the 2 animals and then asked her to feel inside and pull out the one I named with her eyes closed. She did this while in positions:

• kneeling
• standing on top of horse
• on her belly over barrel of horse
• long leg sitting while facing backwards (her legs were next to each other across the horse's back)
• posting (standing with feet in stirrups)
• reaching while facing sideways

I was very impressed because she usually resists holding the prone position and she held this position briefly again  while using another toy and almost dismounted by herself from this position.   In addition, this little girl independently found the bottles hanging from the branches and pulled the reins to stop near them.

The little girl in the photo is  a bit over 2 years old and I am working on having her follow simple directions and imitate movements such as clapping and as shown in the video making the turtle jump. She was able to place the animals in and out of the bottle.   Notice how she made the turtle jump after the magic words "make the turtle jump and then we will GO".

The next video shows her finishing up rolling the ball as I counted the squeaks. I realized as she did this that I should catch it on video. 

The last video shows a different 2 year old kneeling while reaching to pull the rings in the bottle. She loved this and did it about 15 times before I realized that I should make a video. I have a longer version but am sharing the one edited to not show her face. She can also do this while standing on top of the horse.

Q&A with Barbara A. Smith, MS, OTR/L, Occupational Therapist at Challenge Unlimited/Ironstone Therapies in Andover, Massachusetts

http://www.news-line.com/onenews.lasso?-Search=Action&-Table=webinfo&-Database=press%2A&-KeyValue=1889&-token.profession=PO&type=f

Hope you enjoy this recent article...

http://www.homeschoolconvention.com/blog/the-therapeutic-benefits-of-equine-friends/comment-page-1/#comment-4151

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.