THE EFFECTS OF HIPPOTHERAPY ON MOTOR ABILTIES AND SOCIAL COMMUNICATION FOR CHILDREN WITH ASD DIAGNOSIS

Abstract

Due to the increasing number of children diagnosed with ASD, alternative forms of therapy, such as hippotherapy, are becoming more popular. This study aimed to investigate the impact of hippotherapy treatment on 4 children age (5.33 ± 1.6) with an ASD diagnosis. Social communication was evaluated by video recording 8 weeks of hippotherapy sessions and coding for all verbalizations on days 1, 4, and 8 using Datavyu software. Additional social communication data was retrieved from using a joint attention test (JTAT) pre-and post-treatment. Motor data was achieved from the Bruininks-Osteresky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT), administered pre-and post-treatment. Results concluded increases in the quality of language spoken across the course of treatment for all 4 participants. Slight increases in JTAT results was also observed for most subjects. Motor results could deduce an increase in Manual Dexterity for the participants that completed that testing. Future studies should utilize large sample sizes of which no subjects have had prior hippotherapy treatment. Additionally, future research into hippotherapy and ASD should evaluate behavioral changes across treatment. Hippotherapy intervention was determined to have aided in the increase in social communication and manual dexterity of the participants in this study.