A Study On The Application Of The Horticultural Therapy For Children With Special Needs

This study is about the application of horticultural therapy in the rehabilitation for children with special needs.The main questions of this study are listed as follows,What is the effectiveness of horticultural therapy in the rehabilitation?What are the problems of this treatment?How to make this model develop better?This study attempts to answer the above questions by the Ecosystem Theory,adopting the method of participant observation and using the techniques of in-depth interview.Interesting findings include,first of all,the horticultural therapy method has positive effect in children's physical,psychological,mental,emotional and social aspects,caused by reasonable rehabilitation goals,courses and schedules,extensive institution and parental involvement in the service process;In addition,The internal management system,fund raising system,personnel management and the way of propaganda are inseparable,which provide a guarantee for the role of horticultural therapy;The external environment also cannot be ignored,that is,the government's policy and financial support,the community of caring people and caring enterprises,volunteers have all played a Significant role in promoting the development of Horticultural Therapy.In addition,from the perspective of ecological system theory,it is also found that the method of horticultural therapy has effect,not only through the cultivation and contact with crops,plants;it also has a positive impact on the system(family,institution,agricultural station,community)and other individuals(parents,teachers,social workers,neighbors,etc.)who witness the changes occurring in children with special needs,with the perspective of personal reaction to the environment.However,there are still some problems and difficulties in the development of horticultural therapy,including the internal and external system of horticultural therapy.The problems of internal horticultural therapy system,including the imperfect system and organization structure,relatively poor professional and occupation,the limited scale of participating institutions,lack of scientific and effective service assessment and low file management standards.The external challenges including inadequate social policy and social system,inadiquate financing environment and few subsidy for the project,and so on.Finally,some suggestions are provided for the development of horticultural therapy,which refer to many aspects of the service.