Equine-Assisted Behavioral Intervention

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Families and Schools Author

06/20/2019 Added

6 Plays

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Michelle Howell Smith, research assistant professor, is exploring the effects of equine-assisted activities — a broad range of ground-based and horse-mounted activities — on children diagnosed with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD.

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[00:00:00.000]This is a pilot project where we have middle school youth
[00:00:03.080]who have been diagnosed with ADHD participating in something
[00:00:06.480]that's called equine-facilitated learning.
[00:00:08.890]The theory behind equine-facilitated learning
[00:00:12.000]is that the horse is uniquely attuned to its environment
[00:00:15.970]and that includes the people that are within it.
[00:00:18.110]So for our riders who have been diagnosed with ADHD,
[00:00:20.990]one of the first things they have to learn,
[00:00:22.910]before they can even get on the horse,
[00:00:24.840]is how to calm themselves down
[00:00:27.550]because if they're all agitated and hyper,
[00:00:29.960]the horse is gonna feed off of that and be nervous,
[00:00:32.500]and it would be unsafe to ride.
[00:00:34.400]And so by getting in tune with the horses and becoming calm,
[00:00:38.410]they're able to do a lot of different types of activities
[00:00:41.180]that, maybe, they wouldn't be able to do
[00:00:43.200]in their daily lives.
[00:00:45.200]They're gonna do some walking around, leading the horses,
[00:00:47.870]as well as doing some different activities
[00:00:49.950]while on the horses that are specifically targeted
[00:00:52.960]to help them learn how to regulate their emotions,
[00:00:55.930]how to focus and pay attention better, and we're hoping
[00:00:59.650]that those skills that they learn here in the arena
[00:01:02.290]when they're riding the horses will translate
[00:01:05.280]into being able to use those skills at home and at school.
[00:01:08.720]The other thing we work on is memory and attention.
[00:01:11.870]So when you're on the horse, you have to be always engaged
[00:01:15.630]with that animal.
[00:01:16.720]You have to look where you wanna go.
[00:01:18.490]So if somebody makes a noise off in the corner,
[00:01:21.800]you don't wanna look and see what was happening over there
[00:01:24.980]because then all of a sudden your horse is gonna turn.
[00:01:27.560]So you have to sort of develop that discipline
[00:01:29.730]to keep your eyes focused on where it is that you're heading
[00:01:33.540]so that the horse will go where you want it to go.
[00:01:35.890]The methodological component that we're doing
[00:01:38.000]that makes this study really unique
[00:01:40.290]is that we're actually triangulating
[00:01:41.910]three very different types of data.
[00:01:44.190]So we're using traditional survey methods
[00:01:46.170]that you might see in any type of research project.
[00:01:48.550]We're also doing qualitative data.
[00:01:50.760]So that would mean interviews and field notes
[00:01:53.640]of what's actually going on during the sessions.
[00:01:55.880]But then we've added this third component
[00:01:58.230]which is the physiological indicators.
[00:02:00.890]So by looking at the actual heart rate variability
[00:02:03.900]that the riders have while they're on the horse,
[00:02:06.370]measuring their stress hormones before and after
[00:02:09.310]they participate in the riding sessions,
[00:02:11.430]and actually looking at scans of their brains,
[00:02:14.510]we're gonna have a level of detail
[00:02:16.580]that hasn't been seen in any other
[00:02:18.260]equine-facilitated learning intervention research.

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Equine-Assisted Behavioral Intervention

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