Wyatt began hippotherapy when he was about three years old. I know many of you are thinking “What the heck is hippotherapy?”. Hippotherapy is a physical, occupational or speech and language therapy treatment strategy that utilizes equine movement to engage sensory, neuromotor and cognitive systems to achieve functional outcomes. Hippotherapy literally means “treatment with the help of the horse” from the Greek word, “hippos” meaning horse.
In the beginning Wyatt did both speech and occupational therapy on the horse. He barely spoke back then and everything he said during his therapy was whispered. He also HATED the horses and boy did he let me know it. However, with each successive visit I could get closer and closer to the barn before he started screaming. We look back and laugh about it now because he absolutely LOVES the horses and really looks forward to.
So what does this all have to do with NASA you ask? Well we just discovered Miss Marie’s daughter in law, Lt. Col Nicole Mann , is a NASA astronaut and often visits schools to give presentations. Both W and his sister S have a real passion for science and we thought it would be a great opportunity for Wyatt and the kids at S’s school (Lyndon Academy) to have Lt.Col Mann visit.
Nicole gave presentations to the Jr Pre-K through 2nd grade, 3-5th grades and then 6th through 11th grade. She also engaged in paper rocket building with the younger children who launched their rockets later in the day and the older grades launched water rockets on the back lawn. W and AC thought the water rockets were really cool!
Lt. Col Mann also spent time with W and AC teaching them to color in the lines because you have to color in the lines if you want to become a NASA astronaut!
This visit was such a fantastic experience for everyone involved. The presentations were very interesting and Lt. Col Mann was so great with the kids. The students and parents are still buzzing about the visit!
