Disclaimer

The Horse Boy Method™ is not intended or offered as a cure for autism. Ameliorative effects may or may not occur. The method was found to be very useful with Rupert's son Rowan and with other children subsequently. We simply follow what worked for Rowan and others but there is no guarantee of outcome.
By participating in a Horse Boy Method session or training or applying them at home you accept full personal responsibility for any injury or death that can follow any equine activity. The Horse Boy Foundation accepts no liability.

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1. Before you begin: Self-Compassion

Working with Autism can be tough. Working with horses can be tough. In both cases you are attempting to work with a complex individual who may not understand your communication, who experiences greatly heightened anxiety who solves his or her problems by shutting down or running away. And yet who is motivated to connect. We have to go the extra mile here. If we do the rewards are great, if we don’t we may not be forgiven.

So before we begin this work we should give ourselves a moment of compassion. Well done for wanting to do this work at all. Well done for being brave enough, caring enough and compassionate enough and forgive yourself in advance for any blips you might encounter. Relax, it’s ok! With a little humor and an open mind and heart we’ll get there. The bottom line is this.

It’s no big deal!

2. Environment & Equipment

First get set up.

Your best piece of equipment probably isn’t a horse. It’s probably a trampoline. Many kids arrive at the barn full of energy and need some way to burn it off before they can concentrate on the horse. Ask yourself: Is my environment one that is going to make me demand normal behavior from a child that has trouble behaving “normally”? Is my environment full of places the child can’t go? Am I going to have to say “NO you can’t do that” a lot? Do I have a mechanism for allowing the child to burn off their natural energy before, during and in between sessions with the horse? Basically is my environment set up principally for the horse or principally for the child.

To get meaningful communication with an autistic child is going to be difficult if you say “no” a lot. Trampolines, climbing frames, toys, rooms to play in, other animals to interact with such as bunnies, guinea pigs, dogs, cats and so on are really useful. You want the child to want to come.

It also helps the siblings because even if they also get to ride, they need something to do.

3. Sensory Work

Many children on the spectrum benefit from sensory therapies. The horse itself can be an excellent therapist and therapy environment all in one. Smaller children often love to spend extended periods of time lying full length on the horses back. They often derive great comfort from this, and stimming often stops in this situation.  In my experience this is best done with no saddle or a pad with vaulting surcingle while the horse quietly grazes.

However you are best off starting the sensory work not with the child but with the parent or caregiver. Why? Because most children on the spectrum will be circumspect about getting on the horse for the first few times. However if they see mom, dad, brother, sister, caregiver etc. up there (while they are busy jumping on the trampoline, playing with the goats, etc.) it demonstrates to them that the horse is a safe place to be.

Also, remember that the parents and siblings are also very stressed out. They will benefit from sensory work just as much as their spectrum family member will. Plus it demonstrates to them the therapeutic benefit that their child will be getting.

You may need one or 2 people to stabilize the child. And again as much time as the child seems to want is good. Sometimes it can be useful to have a surcingle which the child can hold on to if you then decide to lead the horse around with the child bareback and stabilized by side walkers.

The benefits of direct skin to skin contact with the moving horse are enormous.

The physical sensation is both calming and engaging. And the rocking motion of the horses’ body apparently causes the child’s learning receptors to open and causes the body to produce oxytocin, the feel good hormone. Again talk to the child, communicate, comment on everything you can.  Singing is good, as is repeating measured, rhythmic scripts.

4. Back-Riding

(adult and child riding together)

Having an adult and child riding together is the most effective method for gaining communication verbal or otherwise.

Why?

Because the combination of deep pressure (holding the child), speaking into the child’s ear (not face to face speaking that often agitates the child), and the movement of the horse (which apparently opens up the learning receptors in the brain) all combine to create an optimum environment for the child to receive and retain information.

Plus it’s fun.

Also with back riding you can use the trot and the canter outside on the trail (assuming you know your horse and the ground very well and have full trust in both). Trot and canter usually induce a euphoric responds in the child and words often follow.

While in the saddle with the child, sing and tap on the child’s body in rhythm with the horse’s movement and the song.

Offer constant choices – of gait, direction, song, anything else you can think of – continually as prompts for language. Use rapid prompts. It’s often best to use a simple choice between two stated options.  Change gaits frequently, change direction frequently and comment on this and everything around you. This rapid prompting technique frequently brings about verbal responses from the child.

Basically never shut up!

More is more; the longer time you can trail ride the more results you will get. 30 min is better than 10 min. 1 hour is better than 30 min. Several hours is wonderful.

Stay as long on the horse as you can.

You may have to start with short periods but once the child is comfortable, extend the rides for as long as you can.

However, the moment the child wants to get down, let them. If there is anything they want to check out or if they want to play, climb a tree, paddle in the shallows of the creek, make sure your horse is good at being tied up so you can accommodate this.

Bring toys, drinks, snacks, diapers, and so on.

Saddlebags are useful for this. Also you will need a western saddle. Preferably 18” or more to allow maximum room for adult and child. Preferably synthetic so that the weight is light but with a raw hide synch strap (synthetic synch straps sometimes break).

Also use a breast collar to stabilize the saddle. Make sure your horse is happy with this equipment.

English saddles don’t work because the child may fall out of the front and cannot be stabilized, especially at trot and canter.

A western bridle is not necessary, but it is definitely easier if your horse knows how to neck rein, because you will always have one hand free to stabilize the child.

Finally rhythm is all important. The more consistent and cadenced the rhythm of the horse, the more communication you will get from the child. Scroll down to the section on collection where we go into this in more depth. We also talk in our training video about all the details of back-riding from mounting and practicing with Freddy the Feedback to trail rides in collected canter with a child.

Is back-riding bad for my horses back?

Not in our experience. For example Betsy, the horse that started this all, is now well into her 20s and has no back problems. Using a synthetic saddle and light weight riders helps minimize any potential back problems. Remember that most western riders start this way as children. It’s only English riders who don’t because English tack doesn’t lend itself to back-riding. However making sure that your horses’ topline muscle is as strong as it can be is important no matter how you ride. The use of long lines (see below) really helps with this. And remember, when you back-ride you want the horse to be above the bit not in a frame because you are sitting too far back for the horse to comfortably find a frame. Weirdly though back-riding often helps horses find collection, and makes them go better when ridden with just one rider – because it helps collect them – back-riding therefore helps your horse carry itself in a frame when you ride alone.

Long lining

When children get too big for comfortable back riding it can be useful to switch to long lining. This still keeps the benefit of speaking from behind the child and still avoiding over kill eye contact. At the same time it produces a collected step that is easy to sit to, provides rhythm and also puts a top line on your horse while teaching it collection. So everyone is happy. Also you can go trail riding this way too.

5. The Use of Tricks

@Pendllyn Luitanos: Janine Pendleburty, Rupert and Mercurio

Teaching a horse to do tricks in response to a one syllable command can be very useful in encouraging a child that is reluctant to speak, or on the cusp of becoming verbal to take that extra step.  

Tricks such as smile, bow, lay down, jambettes (presenting a front leg on command), working on a pedestal, or even some high school dressage movements taught as tricks – such as levade, passade, piaffe, Spanish walk and so on – can give a child a great sense of empowerment.

You, the trainer, can discretely cue the horse from the side and also reinforce the one syllable command. The parent or sibling can also do this. Usually the autistic child will watch and see the tricks happen a few times before giving the verbal cue themselves. Once they do, and they get this massive pay off in terms of the response of the horse, it can encourage them to try verbal commands in other situations (e.g. juice please mommy).

Also, because we have families and siblings, the use of tricks allows the family to participate with the horse in other delightful ways, not just through riding and handling.  There is also a benefit for the horse. Trick training seems to enlarge the horses’ learning capacity and give it another way of interacting with humans that is easily understood and therefore pleasurable.  It is important, however, not to overdo ticks and to make sure that the horses are rewarded for them. But having one part of a child’s session be with tricks adds a useful dimension.

We have worked for a long time with Allen Pogue from Dripping Springs, TX. He also has some amazing videos on teaching tricks, that you should check out if you want to teach your horse tricks:www.imagineahorse.com If you are in the UK or Europe Janine Pendlebury is also a really good trick trainer. Her website is www.lusitanosUK.com

6. The Use of Extreme Collection & Long lines

@ Pendllyn Lusitanos: Janine Pendlebury and child on Mercurio riding terre-a-terre(canter on the spot)

Having a quiet horse that is schooled in collected movements, such as piaffe, passage, tere-a-tere and so on, can be useful. Riding with a child in a western saddle performing these movements creates a rocking action of the pelvis and spine and seems to induce a similar euphoria in the child as trotting or cantering – perhaps even more so.

Some children seem to respond to riding using these movements with great joy and laughter. And after that laughter sometimes words come.
The other benefit of collected work is rhythm. All good riding is rhythmic riding. All bad riding is a-rhythmic riding. Jerky, bouncy riding is scary for a child and uncomfortable for a horse. Relaxed, cadenced, rhythmic riding feels great for horse and rider. Why? Because the rocking of the hips that this easy rhythm produces causes the human body to manufacture oxytocin – the feel good hormone.

So the child is flooded with oxytocin and thus feeling great. The brain is on high alert because all movements that make you constantly find and re-find your balance from moment to moment open up the learning receptors of the brain. So it’s worth getting as much dressage training for yourself and your therapy horse as possible and then your therapy horse will transform into a dressage horse! Which opens an interesting question: who is the trainer, who is the therapist, and who is the recipient?

Don’t worry if you and your horse cannot yet ride in collection. You can still do the method without it, as long as you keep an emphasis on rhythm. However you will find that by riding with this emphasis your horse will inevitably start to collect more and more. And why not use horse boy method as an excuse to get yourself and your horse going as beautifully as possible? After all you are spending much of your life in the saddle – it ought to be a constant voyage of discovery.

Long lining

As discussed in the long lining section above, using long lines can serve two purposes. It can give a rhythmic ride to a large child or adult while offering many of the benefits of back-riding. It also builds up the topline of muscle along your horses back and neck and this muscle makes collected work possible. Our training video (LINK TO TRAINING VIDEO) goes into the use of long lines for those not familiar with them.

7. Perspective taking / Theory of Mind / Rule Based Games

Perhaps the most important survival skill a human being can learn is how to take another person’s perspective. So what does that mean exactly? It means knowing when someone is lying or telling the truth. It means learning to recognize and react to moods. It means knowing that other people think differently to you and adjusting your behavior accordingly.

In neuro-typical kids perspective taking manifests itself first with pointing. Obviously this is something once can model a lot while back-riding and the child can pick this up gradually by osmosis as you spend more and more time together is the saddle – you pointing out objects continually and commenting on them and the child responding; especially when you point out objects that you know the child will have an interest in.

However it gets more interesting than this: for the horse can help the child through their first perspective-taking steps – by literally carrying the child in and out of another person’s perspective. We do this with one rider and child on one side of a barrier (which can be made up of people all standing in a line) and another rider and child on the other side. You place a bucket on one side of the human barrier and a saddle on the other. Let’s say you start on the side facing the saddle. You say –“hey look – we see a saddle. I wonder if the other people see what we see – let’s go find out.” Then you ride around the other side: “How about that! They didn’t see a saddle like we did! They see a bucket! Does that mean they now see what we see? Let’s go find out…”

The most important thing here is NOT TO ASK FOR AN ANSWER FROM THE CHILD – because they won’t know the answer and you are setting them up for failure if you do that. So just keep the dialogue going: “Do they see what we see? I don’t know, let’s go find out. Hey – how about that! They see a saddle! Etc”

Why do this? Because this builds what psychologists call ‘Theory of Mind”. The ability to know that someone else thinks differently sees differently to you. Young autistic kids have a notoriously hard time with this. Some never get it. The horse can show them effortlessly, allowing them to get the concept by slow drip osmosis, carrying them in and out of another person’s perspective.

From these simple exercises we go on to rule based games like ‘Tag – You’re It!” and ‘Hide and Seek!” These rule based games are the next milestones in perspective taking and theory of mind. We go into how to teach them without pressure and without possibility of failure in our training video. The horse’s ability to carry the kid through the process means that the child never has to worry about getting it wrong, can learn at their own pace, and can experience the fun of chasing around at the canter as part of it all – which in turns breeds communication because of the euphoria induced by the sensation of being on a cantering horse.

8. Academics on Horseback

You can often take advantage of the fact that the child’s learning receptors have been engaged by the motion of the horse.  This is largely a matter of personal intuition and it helps to know what the child’s interests are, but I will give some examples.

When Rowan needed to learn fractions, we took him bareback on horseback into the round pen and began talking in a general way about going half way around. We then started talking about going a quarter of the way around, ¾ and so on with stops and breaks in between.

We did not ask for feedback at this stage, but after a week or so we started asking, did he want to go half way, a quarter way, etc. and he started telling us. Within a month he was adding and subtracting fractions on paper and within 3 months this was in double figures. Also you can use the letters of a riding arena to help you.

Go into the arena and ask the child to pick a letter. Or if necessary, you can pick the letter, and then ask if that letter should be an animal, a country, a color, whatever seems to engage their attention. Try and let them make the choice. As you walk towards this letter, talk about that choice, that animal, that city, that country, that color. Pretty soon you will have found a way to introduce and explore concepts of geography, biology, literature and general conceptual ideas, while using a simple riding arena.

You can also get creative with numbers, pictures, and so on placed around the arena. Once you reach that letter or symbol you then ask the child to pick another one and off you go again talking about that.

For less verbal children, the input of the parent is essential here to know what motivates the child. So even if the conversation becomes one sided you are talking about something that interests the child and you may be surprised by a response.

For older children and young adults you can use long lines and do the same thing with letters in the arena talking about their interests. Why do this? Because many of the higher functioning people on the spectrum suffer greatly at school from bullying and marginalization. By doing some research before they come on what interests them you can then encourage them to pick letters in the arena that reflect aspects of their area of interest. For example if a kid is interested in violent video games such as grand theft auto you could pick letters that reflect aspects of the game and then from there start talking about cities where the game is set, organized crime and its history, law enforcement and its history, legal systems and their history and so on.

However mostly what one is fishing for here is for the child or young adult to tell you, teach you about what interests them. What we end up teaching therefore is self-advocacy and self-believe. It’s an effortless way of showing them that their areas of interest are interesting, worth hearing about and that therefore they can and should have confidence in their intellectual interests and pursuits. Self-advocacy is one of the main survival skills that any adult needs.

One thing to remember – this is about communication so do not ask for right/wrong answers where there is any possibility of failure. Autistic kids are plenty used to getting things wrong, we don’t need to compound this. What we can do is talk about academic concepts in a general way and ask rhetorical questions that we can immediately provide the answer to so that the child has a chance to absorb concepts by osmosis. We go into this in more depth in our training video.

9. Bring the horse to the child not the child to the horse

This is all about letting the child lead. Most of us grew up being directed by adults at all times. Many adults therefore feel that unless kids are directed most of the time they will ‘run wild’. Well guess what… an autistic child has already run wild and if you try to impose too much on them from the outside you will either drive them into their internal world or convince them that you are somebody to be avoided.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t direct at all, but the more indirect your approach, the less coercive you are, the more result you’ll get. This means observing what the child enjoys, encouraging that first and then gradually bringing the horse into their orbit through whatever game or exploration the child is doing. For example, if the kid is on the trampoline, bring the horse to the trampoline and let the horse hang out there while the kid bounces. Pretty soon the kid will become curious about the horse. Then you have intrinsic motivation. Another example could be a child that wants to stay inside. No problem: you can train your horses to come inside and do trick training there. The kid will get interested pretty fast.

Another example could be a child bouncing on an exercise ball in the corner of the arena. Gradually bring the horse closer and closer until the kid can be bounced onto the horse for one second as part of the general game, then two seconds, then three seconds and so on. If the horse is part of something that the kid is already interested in your chances of success are much higher. Never break an activity, that the child is absorbed in, in order to get them onto a horse. Instead make the horse part of that activity. This will get you communication not resistance.

10. Communicate Don’t Teach.

We are not here to teach riding. Some autistic children will naturally emerge as riders. Others may not. This is the same for all children of course.  Most children, however, autistic or otherwise, often seem to benefit from time spent with social animals who have kind temperaments. The name of the game here is communication.

What we are looking for are techniques and ideas that help produce communication. It can be easy to fall into the trap of trying to teach riding, and certainly some kids want to learn how to ride. But that is a different set of techniques. It can be very easy to alienate autistic children from horses by adopting too much of an instructional approach.

For example when you have an older child or young adult in the long lines you can slip small riding cues into the conversation – that way you are teaching them to ride while at the same time they are teaching you about World War II, deep sea fishing, steam locomotives, or whatever.

This is two way communication at its best. You both come out of the session with more information than you went in with. The horse was the catalyst that allowed this communication to happen. And remember always offer choices even to the less high functioning children it shows that you do want their input and sets up a questioning and seeking dynamic in yourself. That inevitably leads to direct communication.

11. Start Where the Child Is, Not Where You Want Him to Be

What do you do if a child exhibits no interest in the horse? Sometimes a child isn’t going to respond to horses at all. It’s relatively rare but 100% of human beings are never going to respond to 100% of the same stimuli. That said, many children on the spectrum can take longer to process information than we might ideally desire.

We also don’t always correctly interpret how they process information. An autistic child that is apparently ignoring the horse (or anything else) may in fact be acutely attracted but feels somewhat overwhelmed.  They may need time and have several sessions before they come forward to interact with the horse. So if for example the child appears to be doing something that doesn’t involve the horse but is happy to be close to the horse, you can offer this activity on the horse. Piling up sticks for example can happen on the horses back, mounted or unmounted. Gameboys, toys, much loved objects can and should be taken onto the horse, laptop computers, books, whatever interests the child should be allowed onto the horse and the horse should be well trained enough to tolerate this with no problem.

One can draw and paint while on a horse. One can draw and paint on the horse’s body. If the child is exhibiting an interest that does not directly correspond with the horse that interest can still happen on or near the horse.

This kind of patient approach empowers children and lets them know that they have a voice and that their needs, wants and desires will be respected. They may need to know this before they can make the leap of faith onto the horses back.

12. Involve the Family

Remember that the person that knows the child best will be a parent, grandparent, sibling or other trusted individual.

If you don’t directly involve them you are not going to have access to the information you need as the session unfolds. Putting a child up on horseback with a parent or a trusted sibling or carer can be immensely useful, both in the arena and on the trail.  If the child doesn’t ride he can be stabilized in the saddle with side walkers, hopefully one of whom is the trusted family member/carer.

Ask the trusted individual at every opportunity what they think might work or not work and be ready to adapt what you do accordingly. You will get much further much faster this way.

13. Involve if Possible the Therapists

If the child’s occupational therapist, speech therapist, ABA therapist or other type of therapist is willing to attend the sessions and try their techniques while the horse is involved – or even in the playrooms with the other animals, on the trampoline etc., then you have a chance to incorporate some non-equine related techniques that may already be working for the child. You may have a chance to reinforce them or add to them.

Remember this is collaboration, not a contest of who can get further with the child. Having several people there who know the child’s responses can result in some really creative and effective sessions. It’s not a prerequisite to have the child’s therapist come out (where it is a prerequisite to have at least one family member/carer there) but it can help.

14. Being Generally Creative

It is always worth exploring all these techniques where stumbled upon by a certain trial and error process and to some degree reflect the equestrian interests of Rupert Isaacson who pioneered these techniques with his son Rowan. However it does not end here. There are many equestrian disciplines. It seems reasonable to assume that many of them can offer some therapeutic value if approached with that intention, and a spirit of curiosity and enquiry.

People have worked effectively with vaulting and autism for example. There may be other techniques and leaps of intuition to be made.

Trying to keep an open mind and ask the question, is there more to learn, how can I learn it, where can I learn it, who can I learn it from is always healthy.

15. Humor

Laughter is verbal. Laughter is communication. Laughter is a language that transcends verbal skills and promotes trust. So be funny. What makes a kid laugh? Usually potty humor, physical comedy, and anything that seems to challenge adult rules and regulations. How many times have you gone into a barn and encountered a tense, competitive atmosphere? How many times have you heard back-biting about this person or that person? How many times have you encountered an almost military environment of barked orders and general grumpiness?

How many riding instructors are prepared to make fools of themselves in order to relax a rider by making them laugh? Mental relaxation breeds physical relaxation and the two together create a brain that can receive and retain information. Laughter also addresses stress and anxiety which people on the autism spectrum suffer from in great measure. Their parents, siblings and caregivers are often extremely stressed as well. Laughter can cut through all this, like sun through cloud. Be as funny as you can. If your yard or barn is one that is constantly ringing with laughter your success rate will skyrocket.

To learn more details about the Horse Boy Methods please check out Horse Boy Method Training DVD in our Shop.

Disclaimer

The Horse Boy Method™ is not intended or offered as a cure for autism. Ameliorative effects may or may not occur. The method was found to be very useful with Rupert's son Rowan and with other children subsequently. We simply follow what worked for Rowan and others but there is no guarantee of outcome.
By participating in a Horse Boy Method session or training or applying them at home you accept full personal responsibility for any injury or death that can follow any equine activity. The Horse Boy Foundation accepts no liability.