Review article
Influence of therapeutic horseback riding on social development of children with developmental disabilities
Vesna Buljubašić-Kuzmanović
orcid.org/0000-0003-0039-0697
; Department of Pedagogy, University of Osijek, Osijek, Croatia
Abstract
Therapeutic riding and social development of children with disabilities is the result of student activities and their research projects are realized in organizations for therapeutic riding” Mogu” and “Idem”. For the purpose of this work have been identified, analyzed and presented only those research results relating to the effects of therapeutic riding on the social development of children. The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of therapeutic horseback riding on social development of 7 to 8 year old children with delayed cognitive development (N=6), who were integrated into regular schools, but had an adapted programme, having regard to the judgment and opinions of parents (N = 40) and volunteers (N = 26). For this purpose, the Test of unfinished sentences was conducted with children through play initially (before starting therapeutic horseback riding) and finally (after finishing a three-month cycle of therapeutic horseback riding). Children’s answers were scored, and they entailed the relationship of the child with him/herself and his/her environment, parents, teachers, school and peers. By using non-parametric statistics (sign test) to measure the trend of social development of children involved in all research variables (positive, negative, neutral) and chi-square test the significance of differences in the judgments of parents and volunteers on the effects of therapeutic riding on social development and the quality adjustment of children. Results of research at the individual level showed that involved children after therapeutic riding show a significant improvement in the tested determinants of social development, as evidenced results of a conducted questionnaire amongst parents and volunteers.
Keywords
children; social development; therapeutic horseback riding; disability
Hrčak ID:
187034
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2017.
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