Adaptations and Teaching Techniques for Riders with Severe Disabilities, Part 6: Example Riders, Cont. Rider #3 Rider Info Age: 9 Gender: Male Diagnosis: Mitochondrial Ecephalmyopathy Mitochondrial Ecephalmyopathy is a condition caused by mutations in the genes in mitochondrial DNA, affecting the brain and nervous system (“encephalo”) and muscles (“myopathy”). It can cause muscle weakness, exercise intolerance, hearing loss, … Continue reading
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Adaptations and Teaching Techniques for Riders with Severe Disabilities, Part 5: Example Riders
Adaptations and Teaching Techniques for Riders with Severe Disabilities, Part 5: Example Riders Rider #1 Much thanks to my coworker Annie Cornette from PALS for writing the following about one of our riders with whom she has had much success. Rider Info Age: 13 Gender: Female Diagnosis: Cerebral Palsy (spastic) Additional details/conditions: increased spasticity in the lower and … Continue reading
Adaptations and Teaching Techniques for Riders with Severe Disabilities, Part 4: Skills & Activities
Adaptations and Teaching Techniques for Riders with Severe Disabilities, Part 4: Skills & Activities So far I have given notes on the physical and cognitive challenges of severely disabled riders, and the adaptations and support you can use to help teach them how to ride. Now we will discuss the actual riding skills to teach … Continue reading
Adaptations and Teaching Techniques for Riders with Severe Disabilities, Part 3: Cognitive Challenges
Adaptations and Teaching Techniques for Riders with Severe Disabilities, Part 3: Cognitive Challenges As an instructor the first thing you should address is the physical postural challenges of a rider, because only when they are in good posture can they correctly apply the aids. However, posture is impacted by both the rider’s physical condition as … Continue reading
Adaptations and Teaching Techniques for Riders with Severe Disabilities, Part 2: Physical Challenges
Adaptations and Teaching Techniques for Riders with Severe Disabilities, Part 2: Physical Challenges For all riders, posture is the first thing you address because only when you have good relaxed position on the horse are you able to use the aids separately to correctly cue the horse. For riders with severe disabilities we do the … Continue reading
Adaptations and Teaching Techniques for Riders with Severe Disabilities, Part 1: Introduction
Introduction I am excited to share with you this huge compilation of notes on teaching riders with moderate to severe disabilities. While the therapeutic riding instructor is to focus on teaching riding skills, the truth is that sometimes you will get students who cannot balance on their own and may never understand the connection between … Continue reading
Fun Video Friday: “Imagine What It’s Like to Have High Functioning Autism”
Trying to put yourself in the place of your students is valuable. I think lots of us have struggled with similar things, but maybe not to such an extreme, and finding those little places of contact help you relate to and understand what your students are going through. This is the first time I’ve accurately … Continue reading
Communication Techniques for Low/Nonverbal Riders
One of my favorite seminars from the PATH Intl. 2014 Conference was “Dynamic Collaboration: Maximizing Communication During Therapeutic Riding,” given by Karyn Lewis Searcy, M.A. CCC-slp and Director of Crimson Center for Speech & Language, and Kaitlyn Siewert of R.E.I.N.S. Therapeutic Horsemanship Program. Their information was exactly what I’ve been needed to help me with many … Continue reading
Fun Video Friday: The Aspergers “Sensory Funnel”
I thought this was very interesting, and pertains to what we do with horses! Enjoy! The Aspergers “Sensory Funnel” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MCIiPumEQg **************** Note: This is not professional advice, this is a blog. I am not liable for what you do with or how you use this information. The activities explained in this blog may not be fit … Continue reading
Dear Reader: Prosthetic Limbs
One of my friends has a question for you all… Dear Reader, Does anyone have any experience teaching individuals with a prosthesis, specifically, a lower leg prosthesis? I am wondering if there is a way to keep the prosthesis from twisting when the individual rides. It is attached via a suspension system, and it is from the … Continue reading