Remedial Educational Vaulting with Autistic People An Empiric Study 2004

Being an enthusiastic horsewoman I was aware early on of something which I later came across in books and specialist literature: that is, that it is not just sitting on horseback which is so pleasant and beneficial but the mere fact also of simply being with the horse.

Following the completion of my degree in psychology I considered that the training in Remedial Educational Vaulting (REV) at the Austrian Kuratorium for Therapeutic Riding would be an ideal combination of hobby and profession. It w~s during the course of my studies, while I was engaged in practical training with the “Osterreichischen

Autistenhilfe” (Austrian Help for Autistic People) that I first came in contact with autistic people; I was fascinated by the special nature of autism and from that time on I occupied myself intensively with the subject, read numerous books about it and worked frequently with autistic children and their families. Even then I was struck most of all by the severe disorder that autistic people have in their ability to make contact: their apparent inability to make contact with the world around them in the usual manner.