Guest blog: Something special

My son Jamie was born eight weeks prematurely due to complications with pregnancy. He was in the neo-intensive care unit for nearly three week before we could bring him home. I remember the pediatrician telling us that due to his size and weight that we would have a ‘baby’ for longer than most, and not to be surprised if, and when problems with his developmental milestones occurred.

He didn’t do anything according to the norm, and at a year old the Early Start Program stepped in and started intervening with his age appropriate learning; helping with feeding problems, simple things like eye-hand coordination and suggestions in methods to calming him down when he got himself all worked up and out of sorts. Jamie’s pediatrician had a referral put into the University of California Medical Center, Developmental Pediatrics at around 18 months and was officially diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Delay; later at about three years old re-diagnosed with autism. With all the interventions of occupational therapy and speech therapy, we have a great little boy.
Our coordinator with Kern Regional Medical Center suggested we try Jamie with therapeutic horseback riding to accommodate his toe-walking and sensory integration dysfunction. When a child rides a horse they experience all of their senses; vision, hearing, smell, tactile, vestibular and proprioception, all of which have been a big problem for Jamie. We wanted to find a way that was fun and enjoyable, but also beneficial for our little boy.

We were introduced to Saddle-Up Therapeutic Horse-back Riding Stables 2008. What a wonderful experience – the first day, there I was afraid Jamie would freak out with the horses, but he calmly walked up the gangplank with the aide and hopped on the back of this lovely Norwegian fiord horse called Bjorn. This was the beginning of a three year relationship with the riding school. There he progressed to a 17 hand thoroughbred called ‘Big Bob’ walking freely around the paddock, with his aide doing helicopters and stretches to help his movement. The spatial awareness that he had to understand between himself and the horse is an ongoing issue, and something that is improved with horseback riding.

Jamie would face towards the tail and stretch across the horse’s back, at the same time using his thigh and calf muscles to support him – and smiles the whole time. Once on the horse the leader would call out commands to the children to outstretch hands, touch their nose, flap their arms and keep their thighs firm against the horse’s flank, all the time with their horses walking calmly around the paddock. This lasted for about thirty minutes when the children would dismount and hand feed their horse its carrot, and then lead them out through the gate; all-in-all a learning experience.

The riding center had a goal in mind the entire time for a gala when the children put on a horse show. They pinned on a number on their backs like a proper horse show and answered questions about their horse. Lisa, the owner of the school set up the stable and paddock as an arena with flowers and banners, and even a celebrity to announce their names as they entered the arena to carry out their routine: The children loved all the cheers and at the end were presented with a rosette.

Watching my little boy sitting atop that enormous horse with the big smile was absolutely priceless. Autism is finally being made aware everywhere and sports like therapeutic horseback riding is one area where all these children can feel confident and successful and is an absolute joy to watch.

Story and photos submitted by Caralyn, exclusively for In Search of Ponies, www.insearchofponies.blogspot.com

Success understood across species

As featured Oct. 8, 2011, on cnjonline.com
We just didn’t speak the same language.
And it wouldn’t have been such a big deal if he didn’t have the ability to run over me like a Mac truck, a point which was driven home with every nervous or confused twitch he made.
I can still see him standing there, nose to the fence, trembling hind quarters pointed my way, as I tried everything I could think of to get him to respond... to show me that he heard me... to do anything.
Waving arms, yelling, the whip snapping through the air, the plastic grocery bag tied at the end of a stick, annoying tapping on his rump... you name it, I tried it, thinking that the size of the communication needed to match the size of the recipient.
That poor horse.
To this day I have a soft spot in my heart for him, partly because he didn’t swat me like the mosquito I was, but mostly because I now know he was trying to learn my language even harder than I was his, even though it didn’t seem like it at the time.
I thought I knew what I was doing, or at the very least, I knew what I wanted – to get him to move in a circle around me. It should have been simple.
But it wasn’t.
Spending hours upon hours staring at his unmoving backside, I’ll admit I thought he was messing with me and having a big old joke at my expense — an opinion onlookers were quick to share as they chuckled and shook their heads.
But even with his stubborn behind pointed at me, his posture was that of a martyr and I just didn’t feel good about the heavy scare tactics that, as far as I could see, had only left him trembling and jumpy but too uncertain to move.
And then, one quiet day having nearly given up, I tugged his nose away from the fence, lined him up the direction I wanted him to go and stepped back, like I had a thousand times before.
I had never hit him and had no intention of doing so, but my aim was off as I snapped my wrist and the whip licked the saddle with a loud, “CRACK!”
In one solid movement, his head snapped up, hind quarters gathered and he bolted forward with wide eyes.
Lowering the whip in shock, I encouraged him forward, giddy as could be.
Trotting around me, the negativity melted away for him too as his neck curved and his trembling uncertainty was replaced with sure-footed steps.
Life is full of “Duh” moments and anyone who says differently is just not in touch with their inner idiot. For those, like me, who sometimes have difficulty hugging their inner fool and uttering that particular word, I have found a positive alternative — “Eureka!”
We had finally clicked.
By the following week you wouldn’t have known there had ever been a problem at all as he circled, his posture confident. He was so in tune to me; he would screech to a dusty stop or move from a slow walk to a steady jog, then back to a walk, in response to a slight gesture.
In hindsight, it wasn’t really the crack of the whip against the saddle that changed things because I soon realized I didn’t need it.
Rather, it was the success that changed everything.
In that single and brief eureka moment of celebration after our first win, we broke the language barrier.
Up to that point, we had taught each other a lot about failure and error, and we had reinforced it until we were both so frustrated we were literally getting nowhere.
Looking back, I had all the right commands, because the instructions I give him are the same today as they were back then.
But the syntax only mattered to me, never him. All he really needed to know was the bottom line, and it needed to be one he could feel good about — eureka!