May is #BetterHearingandSpeechMonth, a time to celebrate the life-changing services that speech-language pathologists provide. Our very own Terri Hutchinson, SLP was recently featured on HETRA’s podcast “Not Just a Pony Ride” to talk about speech therapy utilizing hippotherapy!
She speaks about her life-long love of horses and how she began using hippotherapy as a tool with speech and language pathology. Terri was already an SLP when she learned about hippotherapy after seeing the incredible connection horses created with people with disabilities at a summer horse camp with her daughter.
Terri currently sees about 20 clients a week at The Shea Center, which includes children on the autism spectrum, young children beginning language development, individuals with stroke, and non-verbal clients that use AAC devices.
Terri finds hippotherapy to be an effective tool for her clients as the movement of the horse can help to set their attention on speech targets. Children who can have difficulty focusing are often captivated by the horses, and Terri is able to use this to her advantage by providing rich language opportunities that are not always possible in a traditional clinical setting.
Terri’s work involves a lot of play and unmounted activities like chopping carrots and walking around the barn to feed the horses. She says, “With non-verbal communicators, they often love the horse’s movement and want more!”
In the podcast, Terri also gives advice to aspiring speech language pathologists that want to use hippotherapy as a tool. She stresses the importance of getting both a PATH CTRI certification and a hippotherapy certification through the American Hippotherapy Association (AHA).
When asked what advice she would give to her younger self, Terri says, “Pick the area of speech pathology that you’re best suited for and go for it! You’ll be so happy in this career.”
As Terri herself says, “We need more speech pathologists who want to start using hippotherapy as a treatment tool. I can’t imagine doing this job without the horse, it’s such a fabulous tool. We really need more SLPs out there.”
