New Research to Examine Benefits of Equine-Assisted Services for Autistic Youth

The Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI) has announced funding for a new research project that will examine how different human-equine interactions affect physiological indicators of self-regulation in autistic youth. The grant was awarded to a team of researchers led by Dr. B. Caitlin Peters, Director of Research at the Temple Grandin Equine Center at Colorado State University and Dr. Robin Gabriels, Professor at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus.

Autistic youth can experience impaired self-regulation, defined as the ability to monitor, evaluate and modify one’s emotions and behavior. There are more than a dozen distinct equine-assisted services (EASs), including a variety of therapy and educational programs integrating horses to improve health and wellbeing for autistic youth. One specific intervention, therapeutic horseback riding (THR), has been demonstrated to improve social abilities and self-regulation in autistic youth. However, there is a knowledge gap about the differential effects of mounted compared to unmounted human-equine interactions on autistic youth. The objective of the proposed study is to quantify the immediate effects of mounted and unmounted human-equine interactions on physiological and behavioral indicators of self-regulation in autistic youth.

“Previously, autistic youth who have been unwilling or unable to ride a horse have been excluded from equine-assisted services studies,” said Dr. B. Caitlin Peters, the Principal Investigator of this study. “This new research aims to inform the development of a completely unmounted intervention protocol, which would enable more autistic youth to access equine-assisted services and benefit from these interventions.”

This study will be the first study to randomly assign autistic youth to mounted vs unmounted human-equine interactions. Twenty-four autistic youth between the ages of 6 and 16 will be randomized to undergo three interventions including horseback riding, grooming a horse and interacting with a life-sized fake horse, which serves as a study control. Researchers anticipate that youth will feel calmer during the unmounted grooming intervention compared to the other interventions and that youth will have improved behavior 24 hours after both the mounted and unmounted interventions compared to the no-horse control. Furthermore, it will provide empirical support for the treatment theory underpinning several equine-assisted interventions, that human-equine interaction has immediate effects on physiological and behavioral indicators of self-regulation in autistic youth.

“HABRI is proud to support research to make equine-assisted interventions more accessible for autistic youth,” said Steve Feldman, HABRI President. “HABRI has funded a number of important studies showing the benefits of animal-assisted interventions for children with autism, and we are looking forward to the results of this study, which will build upon that knowledge.”