Therapists' and teachers' views on the effects of hippotherapy

Abstract

In the last decade, new rehabilitation activities have emerged in education, training and rehabilitation of persons with intellectual disabilities (ID). One of such activities is hippotherapy, a form of equine-assisted therapy. Hippotherapy has recently been recognized as one such method of medical treatment that might be useful for this purpose. In this research, we were interested in the views of various professional workers on hippotherapy. These professionals were all engaged in education and training of persons with special needs, mainly persons with ID and motor impairment. A Likert-type questionnaire was completed by 21 professional workers (14 therapists and 7 teachers). The questionnaire contained 19 questions on the effects of hippotherapy on cognitive and conative aspects of development. All participants completed the questionnaire at the beginning of the experiment and again following a three-month intensive hippotherapy. The t-test confirmed the general differences between professional workers’ views on the effects of hippotherapy on children's improvement of cognitive and motor functions (improvement of cognitive functions (focus, communication, concentration), as well as motor functions (balance, posture, muscle tone)). Therapists and teachers expressed positive views on the effects of hippotherapy on students’ progress already at the initial stage. At the end of the research teachers' positive consideration of the effects grew significantly, while those of the therapists remained more or less the same as at the beginning. We can conclude that the positive effects of hippotherapy are better recognised by the teachers who are in direct day-to-day contact with the observed students (immediately after a hippotherapy session).