Chasin said ‘‘ho” is short for the command ‘‘whoa” or ‘‘stop.”
Max was one of several children attending Camp Littlefoot in Rockville on a sunny Thursday morning.
In a playground area outside of the Katherine Thomas School, a branch of The Treatment and Learning Centers (TLC), which provides educational, vocational and therapeutic services to children and adults with disabilities and typically developing children, a group of small children waited underneath the shade of a tree for their time with Grace.
When it was their turn, the campers were called over by Chasin, national director of nutrition and health for Personal Ponies Ltd., to brush Grace’s thick, dark mane and lead her once around the lawn.
Watching the young girls and boys lead Grace through the grass, Emily Kinsler, director of outpatient speech⁄language services for TLC, said the equine interaction was a collaboration between TLC and Personal Ponies, a nationwide, nonprofit organization that breeds and places ponies in the homes of children with physical or cognitive challenges. The Maryland program, based in Barnesville, is run by the Chasin family, which owns and operates Chasin Dreams Farm.
Kinsler said Camp Littlefoot, one of several programs offered by TLC, is for children ages 3 to 9 who have a primary deficit in the speech and language areas as well as children who have occupational therapy needs.
Kinsler said even doing simple activities like grooming a pony would prove extremely beneficial for Thursday morning’s youngsters, who are working through speech-language issues.
‘‘I think one of the things that it teaches them is to be able to interact with other things because the ponies are not judging them and they’re not trying to communicate with them in any way but non-verbally,” she said. ‘‘[The children] really can open up, they can interact with them, they get a chance to do something they’ve never done before, and I think it really opens up their horizons to new things.”
Kinsler said spending time with Grace would also give each of the children a conversation topic.
‘‘It also helps them expand their language because it gives them a topic to talk about, it gives them some reference points for them to have a conversation and it gives them all a shared experience to talk about,” she said.
Six-year-old Jarod Varisco of Rockville appeared a little hesitant at first, but soon warmed up to Grace. Soon enough, he was confidently leading the small pony in a circle.
Kinsler said Varisco also delays in language development.
‘‘I liked pulling her,” Varisco said. ‘‘She’s a nice pony.”
As she waited for a new set of campers to come out, Chasin said she thought the previous group had done extremely well.
‘‘They did great. They did really well,” she said. ‘‘I think they all were able to connect with her.”
Chasin added that working with Grace gave the children something to focus on and communicate with in both a verbal and non-verbal way.
‘‘It gives them a chance to connect with something at eye-level — a lot of them don’t have the skills necessarily to look eye to eye with you, but they’ll look eye to eye with the pony and practice some of those skills,” she said. ‘‘Just even eye-hand coordination and brushing them — it helps them. Saying ‘ho’ and ‘walk on’ — we do a lot of that with the kids with speech issues. They’re always willing to practice their speech when it’s giving orders to a small pony.”
Chasin said Grace and the other ponies on her farm also visit nursing homes, day care centers and therapeutic riding centers, as well as other schools.
