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Colton's journey with Hoofbeats To Healing
Colton’s Story
Our fourth child, Colton was diagnosed as Autistic PDD when he was fifteen months of age. Colton never crawled as a toddler. He began walking early and he was a toe walker. Colton disappeared from our world into his own world. He had no eye contact or words. He didn’t know when his parents or siblings entered or left his side. He didn’t care if kids ran around him playing and laughing, acting as if they were not even there. He could not pretend play with toys, and was eating very little.
We began Early Intervention with the Jordan School District. He had a difficult time with groups. Colton would respond in early intervention smaller groups; but in kinder music or feeding groups he would run back and forth or throw ear splitting tantrums. Feeding group was a nightmare with Colton only eating 3 or 4 foods.
Soon after Colton turned three in November and was done with early intervention, we hired a private speech therapist which advanced Colton to two word sentences and a total vocabulary of about 25 words. Colton was making no eye contact without being forced to look at who was speaking to him.
By the end of December, I was told by a friend about Hoof beats for Healing. I was optimistic and my husband was extremely skeptical. My husband couldn’t understand how riding a horse could help our lost, little boy find his way back into our world. We were already driving down to Orem from our home in Draper once a week to take Colton to Absolute Health which was helping Colton with his nutrition and temper tantrums.
After a month of riding once a week, I started to notice changes. There was more eye contact. Now there were phrases coming together. By Spring, there were up to fifty different words and six word true sentences. Colton no longer walks on his toes. Colton runs and chases his 6 year old sister and her friends. He interacts and plays games with these kids.
You can imagine how thrilling it is to see your child making steady progress; it is now the end of June and on his seventh month.
We moved right before Colton began Hoof beats for Healing. We still see friends from our old home and they are amazed and tell us that he is not the same little boy he used to be. We still have our speech therapist that knew Colton in early intervention. She is amazed at his transformation. She has recommended Hoof beats to her other parents.
I would recommend Hoof beats for Healing to anyone who has a child with developmental issues. I describe what I have seen in my child as a social re- birth. Tami tells us that it is a "repatterning" of his brain. He is now telling jokes and getting the humor from them. The excitement I am having now is that his sensory issues have been improving weekly. He is starting to touch and pickup vegetables and smell them and touch them with his tongue. He even ate two bites of a strawberry, and licked broccoli. To someone with sensory handicaps, these are huge mountains he has overcome.
Each week I look forward to being surprised with new breakthroughs; they just keep coming. I have learned a lot from the director Tami Tanner on how to help Colton with riding and not enabling his emotional needs. I continue to be amazed at how he has matured and the growth he has achieved in his percentiles for his age.
I could turn this into a ten page paper in how I have seen Colton respond by riding the horses. To any who doubt that these horses repattern brain patterns I would say two things: 1) Ride one of these horses and tell me that you don’t feel a little dizzy afterwards, 2) Look at my Colton and tell me that you can tell the difference between him and a “normal” little boy.
There has been a group effort by many to help this child. I am extremely grateful for all those who have helped Colton to come out of his lonely world. I absolutely include Tami and her horses in this success, and look forward to continuing our successes.
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