More parents taking the alternative route
Updated 9:34 am, Monday, July 15, 2013
Doyle Spratling, 4, loves to swim and play in the pool. Jose Carlos Guevara-Stevens, 13, looks forward to his horseback riding lessons. Jana Phillips, 7, enjoys twisting, bending and stretching in her Wednesday yoga sessions.
For the kids, these activities are fun. What they may not realize is they're also therapeutic.
While traditional therapies can make a tremendous difference, more and more parents of kids with developmental disorders and physical disabilities are turning to alternative, complementary and experimental therapies to help their children function at a higher level and improve their quality of life.
Here's a look at some of these therapies:
Therapeutic riding and hippotherapy
At the Saddle Light Center for Therapeutic Horsemanship, some of the most qualified staffers have four legs and a mane.
Children with cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, Down syndrome, autism, spina bifida and other disabilities ride and play games on specially trained horses at the center, which is near Retama Park in Selma.
Some kids take therapeutic riding lessons, which teach them equestrian skills; others undergo hippotherapy, which uses the horse as a tool to treat a disability.
Hippotherapy works like this: A horse's hip movements mimic humans' movements when walking — anterior/posterior tilting, lateral shift and rotation — and those movements transmit sensory input to the child, said Kerstin Fosdick, Saddle Light Center's executive director and a licensed physical therapist.
“We see improvement in posture, in balance and in mobility,” Fosdick said.
Therapeutic riding lessons can help kids develop coordination, strength (especially core strength) and balance, she said, and riding can calm children with autism and emotional disabilities and help improve their patience and emotional control.
Jo-Anne Guerrero said the horses “know these kids are unique.” Her son Noah, 11, has an autism spectrum disorder, and riding a palomino quarter horse named Schooner eases his anxiety.
“Just knowing he's going to see Schooner, I see (Noah's) energy go down,” Guerrero said.
She even reminds Noah to think about “his” horse when he's not at the riding center: “When he's not in control, I tell him, 'Remember how you feel with Schooner?'”
Noah feeds carrots or apples to all 12 of the center's horses after his sessions.
“He's always calm,” he said about Schooner. “He never snaps at me.”
Most insurance providers do not cover therapeutic riding lessons, but some cover hippotherapy sessions conducted by a physical therapist.
Other facilities offering therapeutic horseback riding include Open T.R.A.I.L. in Boerne, Triple H Equitherapy Center and Upward Transition Therapeutic Horsemanship in Pipe Creek, A.W.A.R.E. Inc. in San Marcos and Dream Walkers Equine Therapy Center in Uvalde.
Five-year-old Morgan Hawk uses a walker on land, but once he enters water, things change.
Morgan, who was born with hydrocephalus — also called “water on the brain” — can run, jump and kick in the pool.
“He can churn butter with his legs,” said physical therapist Beth McMahon as she worked with Morgan at the pool at Stone Oak Therapy near U.S. 281 and Bitters Road.
Morgan's mother, Katherine, said aquatic therapy has helped his ability to walk on land.
“Because the water supports him, he can do things in that unweighted environment a lot easier,” she said.
Aquatic therapy also can help children because the warmth of the water relaxes muscles, and the water's resistance helps build strength, McMahon said. It also lessens pressure on the joints and is conducive to stretching.
“It's a different environment,” McMahon said. “They have to balance in a different way. They have to account for gravity and buoyancy. It's not necessarily an easy problem.”
Water also reduces muscle spasticity, she said.
Sydney Mosley, 9, who has cerebral palsy, works on her balance in the pool by sitting astride a foam noodle and then “Spiderman walks” along the side of the pool by clinging to the edge.
For Andrew York, 7, who has autism, sessions in the pool help to calm him, said his mother, Ursula.
“He's more contained,” she said.
She also believes aquatic therapy has helped his coordination and core strength.
Children with autism spectrum disorders, who have sensory issues, can also benefit from being submerged in water because it acts like “a gentle hug,” McMahon said.
Aquatic therapy is often not covered under insurance, but some physical therapists include pool time in therapy sessions.
Arching her back while on her hands and knees, registered yoga teacher Lisa Phillips instructed her class to stretch “like an angry cat,” then put their bellies down and their heads up like a cow.
The students, a mix of children of various ages and their mothers, imitated the animals, with one little girl even giving a little “moo.”
Phillips was teaching a yoga class for parents and children at the San Antonio Yoga Center on the far West Side. Although the class is aimed at all children, Phillips has a special passion for teaching kids with disabilities. All three of her children — Kaleb, 13; Brayden, 10; and Jana, 7 — have special challenges.
“It's building new neural pathways in the brain,” she said.
She believes yoga has improved Kaleb's severe visual impairment and helped Jana, who is hearing impaired, with auditory processing.
Yoga can help children with developmental and behavioral disabilities such as autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, said Kathleen Matula, a developmental specialist and assistant professor at the UT Health Science Center who is certified in a program called Yoga for the Special Child.
Yoga can alleviate anxiety, improve body awareness and help kids to calm down and focus, she said.
“(Yoga) is also a slower movement than a lot of other physical activities,” she said. “It's more purposeful and intentional. They're having to pay attention to their feet and their hands. They're having to focus more on what their body is doing. That helps, over time. It requires a lot of repetition.”
Matula teaches children fairly simple poses, such as downward facing dog and tree pose, and she doesn't expect them to hold a pose for more than 5 or 10 seconds.
Kids with disorders that hinder their “joint attention” — sharing focus with others on an object or activity — often are unable to participate in sports, Matula said. And children who don't engage in enough physical activity become weak and uncoordinated over time.
In yoga, though, kids don't have to catch a ball or respond to a teammate to reap the benefits of physical activity.
“They can gain balance, strength and coordination,” Matula said.