Therapeutic Horseback Riding In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Author : Benazir Meera
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (141 download)

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Download or read book An Exploratory Mixed Methods Study of Mobile Application Development for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Participating in an Adapted Horseback Riding Program written by Benazir Meera and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: The literature on equine assisted services has identified a significant gap in the generalizability of benefits beyond the horseback riding settings for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A potential strategy for enhancing the generalizability of skills of children with ASD beyond the horseback riding sessions is by integrating parents as co-interventionists. One of the notable ways to include parents as part of intervention delivery is with the use of mobile technology or mobile applications. Technological interventions that are mediated by parents, such as mobile applications, can serve as cost-effective modalities of intervention delivery. Moreover, these interventions have the potential to aid the carry-over of benefits obtained from an adapted horseback riding program for children with ASD. Hence, the purpose of this dissertation study was to develop, refine and test the usability and social validity of a parent-mediated mobile application to be used in conjunction with an adapted horseback riding program for children with ASD.Methods: A three-phase exploratory sequential mixed methods design guided by the Technology Acceptance Model was employed in this study. Using a convenience sampling technique, a total of six participants were recruited from an ongoing adapted horseback riding program at Three Gaits Therapeutic Horsemanship Center (n=3 parents of children with ASD; n=3 certified therapeutic riding instructors). Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with parents and certified therapeutic riding instructors respectively in the qualitative phase. In the interim development phase, a mobile application was developed. In the quantitative phase, a survey questionnaire adopted from the system usability scale and social validity literature was implemented. Results: Three themes were constructed throughout the qualitative phase that captured the needs, perceptions, and experiences of the participants: (a) Everybody's functionality is different, (b) To steer this huge animal is so powerful, and (c) Make a connection to horseback riding. Based on these qualitative findings, a parent-mediated mobile application was developed in the interim development phase. Upon implementing this newly developed parent-mediated mobile application, the participants reported a mean score of 80.5 on the System Usability Scale. Per this score, the usability of the newly developed application was reported as acceptable in the acceptability range and good-excellent adjective rating by the participants. In terms of social validity, all participants reported a favorable response of 'agree' or' strongly agree' to all of the questions about the mobile application's social validity. Question.15 had the highest mean of 3.6, indicating that the majority of participants strongly agreed that they would recommend this mobile application to other families. Discussion: This study's findings report that a parent-mediated mobile application may complement an adapted horseback riding program for children with ASD. This study showed the relevance of including parents and certified therapeutic riding instructors in mobile app co-development. Engaging these key users of the mobile application in the evaluation of its usability and social validity revealed how useful and easy to use it would be for them, thus demonstrating their positive intentions in using this newly developed mobile application with their children. Conclusion: Future studies should focus on examining the efficacy and effectiveness of the mobile application in improving the horsemanship skills and motor outcomes of children gained during adapted horseback riding sessions. Future mobile applications should also contain more individualized learning content and be expanded to include other types of equine assisted services as well as other adapted physical activity programs.