Therapeutic Riding or Mindfulness: Comparative Effectiveness of Two Recreational Therapy Interventions for Adolescents with Autism.

Twenty-seven participants completed the study after three of thirty chose not to continue, so the sample was small. The crossover design let each person serve as their own control, but it did not include follow-up beyond each 10-week period. Participants had to tolerate group settings and could not have extreme fear or mistreatment of animals, so the results do not apply to adolescents who cannot be in groups or who are frightened by horses. Self-report and parent-report can be affected by response bias, such as not understanding, misreading, rushing, or social desirability. The study did not compare responses by verbal skills, adaptive functioning, behavioral level, anxiety level, or sleep patterns. The sample was too small to compare responses by gender, race, or ethnicity. Anxiety level was not measured, although stress and anxiety are related. Heart-rhythm coherence was collected differently for riding and mindfulness: riding participants carried the sensor in a backpack, while mindfulness participants held the device and could see feedback. The mindfulness sessions directly focused on stress and stress triggers, which may have increased awareness of stressors instead of lowering perceived stress.

The paper states that the funder was the Horses and Humans Research Foundation. No other funding or conflict statement is given in the supplied text.

Do not read the lower cortisol after each session as proof that either program reduces stress over the 10-week period. The 10-week self-report and parent-report outcomes did not show a clear overall benefit, and mindfulness increased perceived stress for social and unpleasant events.