ACTHA Charity of the Month
ACTHA Monthly | September 2015 | 34
To put more softness, more rhythm, into Betsy, I’d count the footfalls out loud in ever slower rhythms…Rowan learned first to count, then to put the numbers together!
Suddenly the autism was no longer a tragedy, but an adventure.
So we decided to take a real adventure. We rode across Mongolia together; an incredible, month long horseback adventure told in the book and film titled “The Horse Boy”. My son went out to Mongolia autistic and came back autistic. But his three key dysfunctions, his incontinence, his incessant tantrumming due to neurological issues, and his inability to make friends – these he left behind.
Once back home, I became curious. Was it just my son or might other kids react this way too? I began to run unofficial playdates for autism families in our neighborhood – there was no shortage. In recent years, autism has reached pandemic levels; from 2 children in 10,000 to a staggering one child in 68. And indeed the response was universal. But only when I rode with the child, not if I led them from the ground. Why?
I opened the New Trails Center – and immediately we were overwhelmed. Because we offered (and still offer) our services free of charge to families within 100 miles, we realized that to handle the need we needed to train others to do what we were doing. We consulted neurologists at various universities, and with experts such as Dr. Temple Grandin. The consensus was that the reason the back riding riding with the child) in soft collected
Rupert Isaacson with his son riding in Mongolia
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