To Any Person Interested In Therapeutic Riding

We had an enquiry at the end of November from a parent of a teenager that had scored well below her abilities this year and after being assessed by an educational psychologist, it was found that her difficulties were as a result of Attention Deficit Disorder.

It has been termed that children who battle the effects of ADD are often too intelligent for conventional schooling, and so need a different approach to learning. They also need intense Occupational Therapy to achieve better concentration and effective recall of what they have studied.

No intense study has been carried out in South Africa in relation to the effects of equine facilitated therapy or therapeutic riding and its effects on teenagers with ADD that we are aware of. We would like to do such a study to determine the effects and we suggest the application of 70 therapy sessions in 15 days, with independent Sensory Integration Testing being done before and after the application of the therapy, with a follow-up test in 6 months time, to determine and prove the progressive effects of equine facilitated therapy on the teen's sensory processing.

The teens included in this study need to attend an intense block of equine facilitated therapy during a school holiday. The teen will need to stay with us, stay at the B&B in the next street or be dropped daily. The costs if staying with us, including the 70 therapy sessions, will be about R8000.00.

We would welcome any other interested persons or parents who would like to witness and learn from this, or who also have a teenager who would like to be included in this program, to please contact us or to phone me Helen du Plessis on 082 975-5369.

We are also investigating the application of Equine Facilitated Movement Therapy on the stroke patient in view of a future study.