Effects of Equine Therapy on Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Literature on effects of equine therapy in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has grown in recent times. Equine therapy is an alternative multimodal intervention that involves utilizing a horse to enhance core impairments in ASD. Recent systematic reviews in this area have several limitations including inclusion of populations other than ASD, assessment of a variety of animal-assisted interventions other than equine therapy, and a failure to conduct quantitative analyses to provide accurate effect size estimates. We conducted a focused systematic review to address these limitations. Our review suggested that equine therapy has beneficial effects on behavioral skills and to some extent on social communication in ASD. The evidence for positive effects of equine therapy on perceptuo-motor, cognitive, and functional skills is currently limited.

Keywords: Equine therapy; autism; behavior; hippotherapy; social communication; therapeutic horseback riding.

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Statement: On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1

A flowchart of the study selection process