The Impact of a Horse Riding Intervention on the Social Functioning of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Androulla Harris and Joanne M. Williams
Additional contact information
Androulla Harris: Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, UK
Joanne M. Williams: Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, UK

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-19

Abstract: This paper reports a case-control study of a horse riding intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A sample of 26 children, aged 6 to 9 years, were assigned to either the intervention ( n = 12) or control group conditions ( n = 14). Pre- and post-tests were carried out using the Childhood Autism Rating Scale, Second Edition (CARS2) and the Aberrant Behaviour Checklist-Community Edition (ABC-C). An observational measure of compliance and behaviour during the horse riding sessions was completed for the intervention group. There was a significant reduction in the severity of ASD symptoms and hyperactivity from pre- to post-test for the intervention group only. These results indicate that the intervention improves some aspects of social functioning for children with ASD.

Keywords: autism spectrum disorder; ASD; animal-assisted intervention; therapeutic horse riding; social functioning; human-animal interaction; children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/7/776/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/7/776/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:7:p:776-:d:104651

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().