Summary: The reason I decided to interview Beverly Saddler was because I was interested in learning about Hippotherapy as a means of therapeutic services for Autism related therapy. I wanted to learn about the differences between Hippotherapy and equestrian therapy and it all seemed very confusing to me. So, I decided to go the horse’s mouth (sorry for the Pun) and went straight to a therapy centre here in Connecticut where I live to find out more. This article is featured in Issue 5 of Autism Parenting Magazine on Hippotherapy Leslie: I am here with Bev Saddler in Ellington, Connecticut on March 30th, 2013. And Bev runs the Ellington Therapy Center. Beverly Sadler: Ellington Therapy Riding Center Leslie: Would you mind telling us, how you came to start the center? Beverly Sadler: Yes, my sister in-law who is the owner and manager of the barn about four years ago and called me and said “Bev, I have couple of girls who want to come ride. They have ADHD. What’s that?” and I explained to her what it was and so she and I worked together with this kids and we found some pretty amazing things for them and so I drove out here saying to myself, this is what I want to do. So I did the research. I found out what I had to do to become certified in what’s called hippotherapy, hippo is Greek for horse and hippotherapy is often used as one of the tools used by occupational therapists, physical therapists or speech language pathologists and that’s one of their tools and its part of their plan of care and that is what I do. As an occupational therapist, I do occupational therapy and it just so happens that the horse is one of my main modes of intervention for the children. I also have a small clinic here and sometimes we start there. We work on anything from strengthening, range of motion, to expressive language that comes just naturally. I am not a language pathologist but I have worked enough with them where I know how to prompt the children. If they want the horse to go they have to say that little word of “GO” and then we start expanding from that. I think one of the major differences to point out is that therapeutic riding is different and that people who go into that are “horse people” and they have to learn how to work with people and kids with special needs. So, it could be anyone as long as they can walk, trot and canter and teach the kid how to ride, they can be certified as a therapeutic riding instructor. They often do multiple children or adults in a group so it can be anywhere from three to eight people in their sessions whereas most of us [hippo-] therapists do one on one. Leslie: With hippotherapy? Beverly Sadler: Yes. And I would just like to point out that most of us [hippo] therapists would say we’re doing occupational or physical or speech therapy and were using hippotherapy as our intervention because insurance companies do not cover the whole therapy. They cover OT, PT and speech, so the delineation between therapeutic riding instruction and a therapist doing a therapy is the number of kids, (group versus one on one), and our perspective. When I have a child stand up on stirrups, I am looking at their balance, their coordination and their endurance to be able to sustain that position whereas a therapeutic riding instructor would say, “Maybe they are ready for posting because they are thinking what can I teach this kid on a horse to be a more independent rider, [whereas a hippotherapist is focusing on the child gaining balance, coordination, endurance, etc. to achieve the highest level of independence and functioning]. Leslie: And how do you become certified in hippotherapy? Do you have to be a certified occupational therapist, first? Beverly Sadler: Yes Leslie: And then, do you have a program to go through for hippotherapy? Beverly Sadler: It was quite a great experience, I went to Rahobeth, Massachusetts to Greenlock Therapeutic Riding Center (http://www.greenlock.org/#!
