Horsemanship and Teaching an Autistic Child

Hippotherapy and horse-riding are definitely on our list of things to try for Charlie (whose equine experience has so far been only on a pony walking in a ring). Niki Wilde applied her knowledge of horsemanship to help her son, 13-year-old autistic son, Branden, as reported in today’s KUTV.com (Utah). As a child, Branden would not wear his clothes or diaper:

She [Branden's mother] found a connection between things like desensitizing her son to a hug and getting a horse used to a saddle.

“Well, I’ll touch you a little bit and then I’ll back off and then I’ll touch you a little bit and I’ll back off,” she explains.

Branden’s mom learned progress happens in very small steps.

“If you can get him to where he’ll want to be touched then he’ll wear a shirt. He’ll keep his clothes on, he’ll wear his shoes, then you can start to add little pieces to that,” she said.

Branden is now mainstreamed in a middle-school classroom and “a sports fanatic”; a video on the KUTV.com webpage shows Branden jumping on a trampoline while shooting baskets.