Therapeutic Horsemanship

We finally got a picture of Isaiah smiling on the horse at therapy. He doesn't seem to mind riding the horse. He never cries or signs "all done" and he cooperates whenever they put him in crazy positions on the horse. He looks very focused most of the time unless something else catches his eye. However, he had never smiled on the horse until this week which is his fourth time on the horse.

It will be difficult to measure exactly how beneficial this therapy is. I'd love some concrete measurement as we are paying for it out of pocket. I have to think it is helpful though because his core muscles are actively engaged for 45 minutes and if you know our little guy, he doesn't do ANYTHING for that amount of time. His other therapy sessions are spent trying to keep his attention for more than 2 minutes at a time, but he stays focused and is working for 45 solid minutes on the horse. We have noticed a definite increase in his core strength in the past couple weeks and he can take a few steps just holding one of our fingers now. Before he had to hold both hands and be held steady. In the past few days he has been eyeing the distance between two objects trying to figure out if he could take a step or two to get there, but he hasn't made the jump yet. We have added some other core exercises to his at home routine too. All of this core exercise talk reminds me that I need to go exercise my core so I can be strong enough to carry this boy around.