Give Equine Therapy to Children with Disabilities

The Red Thread’s mission experiences are about work. This weekend‘s Jacob’s Fund trip is no different; our muscles clearly tell us we’re doing that, and it’s satisfying. But our joy is meeting with the children we support and their families.

When Melissa and Russell arrive with Landon and Cameron, we pull off our work gloves and make a beeline for them.
The twins are taller, their toddler faces changing to little boy features, but they are still virtually indistinguishable to us at first. We rely on the difference in their shirt patterns to help us for a few minutes, but soon we get their names right almost every time.

Besides, Landon is wearing BIG headphones. Disney tunes, maybe?

Melissa enlightens us. Landon’s started a new therapy: Therapeutic Listening. We’re unfamiliar with this therapeutic approach, so she and Landon’s therapist explain the therapy and what it can do for children with sensory integration difficulties.

Therapeutic Listening helps kids who have difficulty with sensory processing dysfunction, listening, attention, and communication.

Since the auditory system has connections to many parts of the brain, sound is a powerful way to access the nervous system and affect changes at all levels. The music in Therapeutic Listening albums gives the child unique and precisely controlled sensory information. The music is e3lectronically modified to highlight the parts of the sound spectrum that naturally trigger attention and activate body movement.

Landon listens to specifically recorded and enhanced music through his headphones both at McKenna Farms and at home. His music program was designed by his therapist for his unique needs. Therapeutic listening stimulates not only the auditory system but the entire brain. The main idea is to integrate the auditory and vestibular systems. Children using this listening program are often compelled to move and explore the environment in new ways because the benefits of Listening Therapy include improved:

. alertness, attention, and focus
. receptive and expressive language, including articulation
. balance and motor planning
. affect and emotional responsivity
. self-motivation
. awareness of the environment
. postural security
. spatial awareness
. initiation of play behavior
. initiation of verbal interaction
. stability

Landon does indeed listen to music, but it is music that has been custom designed and enhanced for him. The design is based on clues Landon gives his therapist. From there, she works out the program he needs. The headphones and CD player have special features.

And who knew that we listen not only with our ears, but with our whole body? Upon reflection, that makes perfect sense.

Just before Landon joins his therapist for more of this mind-bending therapy, Melissa offers us the headphones. We hear music, of course, and we recognize some of the pieces, but there are points of emphasis and enhancement.
We return to our work amazed at the array of therapy tools and methods that the staff at McKenna Farms employs to help these children experience their lives and their world more fully.

We’re grateful to have a partner so dedicated. And we are grateful to our Global Giving donors who support our efforts to make these therapies available to more children.

Links:

• International Innovations in Healthcare Article, September 2014