Lana is six years old and loves coming to her occupational therapy treatments using equine movement at The Shea Center! A client for just four months, she is making great progress.
Lana was reaching all her milestones until at age 1, she began to regress. She stopped talking and showing emotion, and her motor skills declined. At the time, the family was living overseas and did not have access to skilled therapy or a definite diagnosis. When Lana was 5, the family moved to Irvine, and eventually received a diagnosis of autism including speech apraxia and dyspraxia. With that diagnosis, they began a series of physical, occupational, speech, and music therapies, and applied behavior analysis both privately and at school.
Occupational therapy utilizing hippotherapy at The Shea Center has made a huge difference in Lana’s life. From the beginning, she was not intimated by the horses and began bonding with the ones she rode. (Alik is her favorite.) Lana tries her very best during treatment sessions. She was accomplishing things on the horse that she wouldn’t even try off the horse. Then, one day after 4 years of showing no emotion whatsoever (not even crying), Lana was riding Alik and her parents saw her smile! Right then, they knew being at Shea was meant to be for Lana.
Lana’s mother, Rawan, says the horses give Lana energy. She has fun and every time she receives sensorimotor input from the horse, she becomes stronger, not just her core strength, but her confidence and courage too. Lana now runs and jumps and even rides a bike. Occupational therapy using equine movement helps her focus and pay attention, which affects her other therapies too.
When Lana arrives at Shea, she runs to get her helmet and loves to feed carrots, groom the horses, and ride through the barn and on the trail. She is mostly nonverbal and speaks only one word at a time, but she now shows her emotions by smiling or even crying if she is in pain. Rawan says, “The horses brought out Lana’s emotions and bring her joy. This is her happy place.”
