The Horse Boy Explores Whether Equine Companionship Can Help Treat Autism
The Wall Street Journal
Ask most parents how far they’d go for their child, and the usual answer is “to the ends of the earth.” It’s a turn of phrase that Rupert Isaacson and Kristin Neff took literally.
“The Horse Boy,” directed by Mr. Isaacson and Michel Orion Scott, and opening in New York on Sept. 30, is travelogue of sorts. In 2004, Mr. Isaacson and Ms. Neff’s 2½-year-old son Rowan was diagnosed with autism, a neurological disorder now diagnosed in one out of every 150 children according to the Centers for Disease Control. As Rowan grew, he got worse, as autistics generally do: In homemade footage, Rowan is shown becoming a volatile child whose only place of peace, his parents find, is on a horse.
Rowan Isaacson and his family traveled to Outer Mongolia in the hope that horseback riding would provide some help in dealing with his autism.
Escaping from his father one day, Rowan ran into a herd of horses. His father was petrified, but the herd’s lead horse pushed the other horses away, bent her head to Rowan and began to lick and chew with her lips, a sign of submission. And as the horse responded to Rowan, the boy responded to the horse.
via The Horse Boy Explores Whether Equine Companionship Can Help Treat Autism – WSJ.com.
Posted on September 25, 2009 | No Comments | Category: Autism, Caregiving | Tags: movies
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