The Hippotherapy Movement

• While riding, hip movements allow the organs in that area to settle and therefore make it less challenging for the child to lower their diaphragm. Therefore, the amount of air the child breathes in is increased and their shoulders relax, which assists in abdominal breathing, a condition that is required for good vocal quality.
• Provides a therapeutic environment that is focused on improving functional goals by incorporating equine movement, which can be adjusted to the needs of the child.
• Has improved the motivation and attention in children with language learning disabilities
• While interacting with horses, children do exploratory behaviors so they can see the horse's responses.
• The child's emotional responses, including self-esteem, may improve with equine-related psychotherapy.
• Improving trunk strenght may help the patient improve their volume when speaking (I have seen this with a child the therapists say used to be very quite but was later very loud).
•Physical, occupational, and speech therapy focus on improving the same nervous system. Though it only appears that physical gross motor skills improve, hippotherapy also improves fine motor and cognitive skills. Since speech is a motor process, hippotherapy does have benefits for speech therapy along with physical.
• Hippotherapy can include other tasks while the child is riding, such having them verbally communicate with the therapist, and this also improves function. It is similar to conventional therapy which may use cards or books in a classroom setting, but it is instead incorporating those activities while the child is on a horse and the horse's movements are improving neurological function.
• Children with autism have been seen to start trying to communicate after hippotherapy, which is not something they would have normally done