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~ Thomas’ Story
I want to share with you a testimonial story from Kathy Gray, mother of a PPTRC
Rider. Their story was also highlighted in this years’ video presentation.
My son has been diagnosed
with sensory integration disorder. He is also severely speech and language
delayed, and has a possible auditory processing disorder. In addition he has
several characteristics of autism, though he has not been formally diagnosed
with autism.
When he was two and three
years old, everyone told me “all kids develop at different rates, he will be
fine” or “Einstein did not talk until he was four”. Well, when he turned four
years old and still only knew a few words and only very simple sentences... I
decided enough was enough…I was going to take him in to get evaluated.
They found out that as a
four year old, he was at a two year old level of speech development. He started
speech therapy once a week. While he showed some gains, he was often
distractible, had a hard time focusing, and was often out of it by the end of
the session.
His therapist recommended
that he try hippotherapy (therapy on horseback) as a supplement to his weekly
speech therapy sessions. He started with Angela. I was immediately amazed at
how much more focused and attentive he was on the horse. His progress with
speech increased dramatically. He quickly learned “on”, “under”, “behind”, “in
front”.
One day Angela told me my
son was doing so well, she was going to move on to function of objects. If you
asked my son “what do you do with a fork” he would just repeat “fork”. He did
not make the proper associations. My immediate thought was “oh boy…this should
be a challenge for her.”
Well I was in complete
shock when she returned to the side of the area and told me “he got them all
right”. I honestly thought I misheard her. It was a huge breakthrough for him.
On the way home I asked my son about function and he was able to demonstrate
that he retained what he had learned on horseback.
I was truly amazed. I
credit Pikes Peak Therapeutic Riding Center and their Hippotherapy program for
such a large part of the progress my son has made over this past year. I am
not 100% sure why the therapy works, but I do know it works. Thank You PPTRC
for offering such a terrific program.
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Pikes Peak Therapeutic Riding Center
