Autism Awareness Campaign - Horticultural Therapy

Continuing with other non-traditional therapies being practiced for persons with autism, today I am touching upon Horticulture Therapy (HT).   

Horticulture therapy makes people engaging with nature to combat anxiety, promote sensory integration and build social skills.  The critical aspect of Horticultural therapy is “people-plant connection”.  It uses plants, gardens and natural landscape to improve cognitive, physical, social, emotional and spiritual well being.  Horticulture therapy can offer cognitive and physical benefits to people with autism.

Extensive research studies were conducted in early 2000s to monitor effects of HT on mental healing, cognitive re-organisation, and training of sensory motor function.  The Functional Independence Measure (FIM) and Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS) were performed before and after the therapy sessions to assess the patients’ physical activities of daily living (ADL) and to determine the patient’s mental changes in depressive states, respectively.  Functional MRI (fMRI) during recognition tasks was also measured before and after the therapy sessions. The ADL of all patients significantly improved after the therapy sessions.  However, the depressive states in all patients did not change remarkably after the sessions.  fMRI examinations showed that the visual area, the inferior temporal area, the supplementary motor area, the sensory area, and the cerebellum in the brain were activated after the therapy sessions. These findings suggest that HT can accelerate an improvement of activities in the “visual and colour processing areas” and the “association areas” as well as the “sensory-motor areas” of the brain in the patients with cerebrovascular disorders as well as autism.  Horticultural Therapy, therefore simulates parts of brain, that are not always evoked through routine physical rehabilitation.  Results of these studies indicate effectiveness of Horticultural Therapy in improving brain functions, leading to better cognition, motor control and social skills.

For past few years Horticultural Therapy is being seriously practiced in Kerala. Thanks to the College of Agriculture, under the Kerala Agricultural University, that is spearheading this initiative.  There are similar initiatives in other part of the country also.  

Before all these developments, in 2004, I was looking for a not so common and different vocational activity for my daughter.  What I stumbled upon was Hydroponics, i.e. soil-less gardening; gardening with water as medium.  Not much resources were available at that time, and I had to do everything from scratch.  Involved Pratibha in some of the activities of hydroponics gardening (on our window sills) and I found that she liked it.  I didn’t think of it as therapeutical activity at that time.  But, I did realise the plant-people connection and its positive effects.  Now planning to seriously take up “Horticultural Therapy with indoor gardens using Hydroponics” for therapeutic benefit to developmentally disabled persons. 

An integrated approach combining mainstream therapies such as Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, Physical Therapy, Special Education, Psychologic Counselling with non-traditional therapies such as Music Therapy, Horticultural Therapy, Pet Therapy, Aquatic Therapy etc. are to be used in a goal-oriented intervention to see fruitful improvements in cognitive, behavioural and social aspects of persons with autism. 

I will conclude this post with a quote “Never underestimate the healing power of a quiet moment in the garden”.