Effects of Equine Assisted Interventions on Communication and Language Development for Children on the Autism Spectrum

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Authors

Nicole Denni-Krichel¹ , Laurence Hameury²

1. Epona
2. CHU Tours

Conference / event

Autism Europe XII International Congress, September 2019 (Nice, France)

Poster summary

Equine assisted interventions helps autistic children to exchange and to progress in communication. Indeed, it stimulates functions involved in interactions with others, communication development (joint attention, association, imitation, intention, perception) and develops systems interfering in social adaptation, regulation, and information processing. Horse will lead child to experiment co-action and reciprocity, promoting interactive behavior and exchanges with language. Horse movements, through multisensorial stimulation, activate sensory-integrative functions and encourage vocal productions. Many international scientific studies about quantitative evaluation of results in equine mediation empower to validate this approach.

Keywords

Autism spectrum disorders, Equine assisted therapy, Communication

Research areas

Medicine, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Neuroscience

References

1. Denni-Krichel N. Accompagnement orthophonique de la personne avec autisme : intervention orthophonique. 2011 Ortho-Edition
2. Gabriels R.L, Pan Z., Dechant B.,Agnew J.A., Brim N., Mesibov G. Randomized Controlled Trial of Therapeutic Horseback Riding in Children and Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2015, 54, 7, 541-9.
3. Hameury L., Delavous P., Teste B., Leroy C., Berthier A., Gaboriau J.C. Equithérapie et autisme. Annales Médico-Psychologiques, 2010, 168, 9, 655-659.
4. Hameury L. L’enfant autiste en thérapie avec le cheval. Connaissances et savoirs Ed., 2017, 98 p.
5. Memishevikj H., Hodzhikj S. The effects of equine assisted therapy in improving the psychosocial functioning of children with autism. Journal of special education and rehabilitation, 2010, 11, 3-4, 57-67

Funding

No data provided

Supplemental files

No data provided

Additional information

Competing interests

No competing interests were disclosed.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and / or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2022 Denni-Krichel et al. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.