International HETI Congress of

Equine Facilitated Programmes

Therapeutic vaulting in motor skills in equine-assisted therapy: a qualitative and comparative
analysis of the use of isolated barrel, isolated horse and barrel and horse together.
Juliana Ganem Fernandes Pires¹ ; Aline Giovana Sarti² ; Claudia Costa Mota ³

INTRODUCTION
The equestrian modalities serve as a basis for the service strategies in Equine-assisted therapy, such as equestrian vaulting which, after
being adopted for a therapeutic bias, promotes motor skill development through exercises on the horse.These exercises are complex, but
dynamic, and can be performed on the ground, on the vaulting barrel and on the horse.  
PURPOSE PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS:
Qualitatively analyze psychomotor abilities in the equestrian vaulting and thus 40% presented a diagnosis of intellectual
compare
. the use of isolated barrel, isolated horse and barrel and horse together. disability; 16.7% Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
MATERIAL AND METHOD APPROACHES Disorder; 10% Autism Spectrum Disorder; Among
Approaches: This project was approved by San Francisco University research ethics other diagnoses presented in Figure 1.
ethics committee (CAAE : 17152019.0.0000.5514). Participants who have not participated or missed
PARTICIPANTS the group dynamics were excluded from the
30 children and teenagers, being 83.3% male and 16.7% female. Age ranged from 5 to sample.
15 years (A= 9.70; SD= 2.52). Divided into three groups: PROCEDURES AND STRATEGIES
B – Isolated Barrel (N=10); C - Isolated Horse (N=10); BC - Barrel and Horse together Eight two-hour sessions have been held monthly
(N=10). for one year.
The strategies and the environment were prepared by the interdisciplinary team, based on the methodology of the equine-assisted therapy
program in skills development (PAEDHA).
Each group meeting was given a theme according to the psychomotor factors, and each meeting was divided into three phases of
assistance: Number of the Meeting / Themes
Meeting 1- Presentation and purpose of the meeting
Meeting 2 - Muscle Tone
Meeting 3 - Balance
Meeting 4 - Body notion
Meeting 5 - Spatial notion
Meeting 6 - Temporal notion
Meeting 7 - Gross motor skills Group B execution phase. Group C execution phase. Group BC sharing
Meeting 8 - Fine motor skills Topic: Gross motor skill Topic: Balance phase Topic
Stages of
Figure 1.the session:
Line graph of the body notion
Warm-up; Execution; Sharing RESULTS
participants
ASSESSMENT: Through the analysis of variance (ANOVA) an average analysis of the assessment
diagnostic
Qualitative profile regarding psychomotor and reassessment was performed to verify the differences in the score of the three
questionnaire
skills, written by the team and applied to the groups (Figure 3). In group B (isolated barrel) there was an increase in the
leaders at the beginning and at the end of the average, with a 2.2 differential; in group C (isolated horse), the average decreased
group sessions (Figure 2).
by 2.5. Finally, in Group BC (barrel and horse together), there was an increase in
Drawings and accounts of participants were jotted
down and recorded by the team after the the average of 3.9, which is the greatest difference among the groups (Table 2).The
beginning and the end of each meeting. results of the questionnaire showed that Group BC presented more relevant
changes associated with the development of abilities related to balance, body
notion, space-time notion, gross motor skills - all outcomes that showed
improvement when compared to Groups B and C. Surprisingly, group B has proven
better when compared to Group C. The pre- and post-intervention drawings
showed an extension of the perception regarding body and space parts.
Tabela 2. Pre- and post-intervention – body notion
Análise de diferenças das médias, considerando a amostra geral

t df Sig. Diferença 95% Intervalo de confiança

média da diferença
Figure 3. Group averages in assessment and Inferior Superior
reassessment Avaliação 24,767 29 ,000 107,833 98,93 116,74
Reavaliação 27,431 29 ,000 109,033 100,90 117,16

CONCLUSION
Such findings suggest that therapeutic vaulting is a strategy that stimulates psychomotor Pre- and post-intervention - Spatial notion
skills, and, although the barrel and horse group together have shown better results, it is
possible that, due to the lack of availability of a horse, the isolated use of the barrel is a
valid alternative.
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