REDMOND, Wash. — A little horse named Pete is helping a little girl named Celeste learn how to speak, at Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center. A place where people with disabilities can reach their full potential, using horsepower.
Devin Kubat is a speech and language pathologist at Little Bit who works with Celeste.
"Celeste is 2 years old, she is autistic, so she was diagnosed with autism. She came here and she was not speaking very much,” said Kubat. "So her mom brought her here and we're so glad she did. She is adorable. She loves horses. This is a really, really great place for her to be for therapy, because it's such a fun environment."
Thirty Percent of Little Bit's clients are people with autism according to Little Bit's Executive Director Paula Del Guidice.
"There's so many reasons why it works. There's a little bit of Little Bit magic. But there's some great science around the impacts,” she said.
Even sitting on a pretend horse connects the mind and the body, that's why Celeste's sessions often begin with Celeste astride a padded barrel, repeating the words on flashcards that Devin presents to her.
But the real horse turns learning into sheer delight. Celeste grooms Pete, and leads him around an arena, with some help from her therapy team.
“For a kiddo like Celeste, it's such a motivating environment. This is fun. This is different than traditional therapy. The horses are alive, they're interacting with us, they are biofeedback." Kubat said.
Celeste doesn't ride Pete - but she does communicate with him, and Pete understands and responds. And that helps Celeste reach out to others.
“She'll do things like reach up to hold Devin's hand. That's a social interaction play with somebody else, a communication and a body language, before she wasn't doing those things” said Wendy Weilbacher, Celeste’s mom.
First words, and first steps, often happen at Little Bit. Celeste said her first “Thank You” here.
“We all got to hear it. It was just it was wonderful,” Del Giudice said.
"And that was very exciting. Mom was like, I never heard her say before,” Kubat said.
At the end of this session, Pete gets a treat - carefully delivered on a tray for safety. And the little girl who came here with "very few words" couldn’t communicate her joy any more clearly as she announces, "He’s eating!," then thanks Pete, before heading home.
“As a mom what I've gotten from Little Bit since she's been here is that peace, that good feeling knowing that she's going to be okay,” Weilbacher said.
If you know someone who could benefit from therapy with horses, contact Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center at (425) 882-1554 and if you would like to support them, their ‘Reins of Life’ Auction is April 20th, and tickets are available.
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