Despite the cold weather of January we still help the start of the first 8 week session of the Prism Ponies, an 8 week long session that is specifically designed for children on the Spectrum to help learn the many smaller social cues and interactions that happen in daily life and they miss. For the past two years we have run this group over the summer months for kids and beginning this year decided to expand it to be a year round offering.
Our Prism Pony Group is getting off to a great start in 2011 -- this is a block of sessions specifically designed for children and young adults on the spectrum.
Within the structure of the lesson will be both mounted and un-mounted activities
with these goals in mind :
¨ engage in co-operative teamwork
¨ improve stamina
¨ encourage physical activity
¨ strengthening in the abilities to read social cues
Children will be introduced with a simple schedule and build from there to provide more involvement in independence and learning to cope with transitions.
The two boys who began in this first winter session are both elementary aged so it seemed appropriate to assign some true ponies for them.
OYY Arcus a 12.2hh pony made his debut as a lesson horse and just as we thought ~ he proved to be very capable in the therapeutic setting.
OYY Pal’s Job a 13.3hh pony was the other choice. He has given lessons in the past including being a part of our summer Prism Ponies group. He has demonstrated time and time again what a safe, capable pony he is.
As a part of their first lesson they learned and worked on ground skills with the horses that emphasized using their body to communicate, respecting space of the horses and each other, making a plan in their head and carrying it out, and staying focused, while also working on basic horse skills such as how to stop, how to direct, how to move around a horse and so on.
Both boys were happy and excited to be working with their mounts and the personalities seemed to be a perfect match between horse and handler.
As the sessions continues we are going to continue to emphasize how to communicate with your body, how to read the body language of another, a stronger understanding of personal space and what it means, and their ability to focus while also teaching basic horse and riding skills.
Just a short video of the first lesson ~
Each group is a block of 8 once a week sessions. If you are interested in signing up for one of our Prism Pony Groups -- call the instructor Zoe Lirakis at the Center - 802-885-4126 !
