As the rates of autism and continue to rise, more therapeutic options are becoming mainstream for people with autism spectrum disorder. Parents of children with autism and adults on the spectrum are searching for the best ways to help their children succeed and become more independent in life. Traditional therapeutic options such as ABA, speech language pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy and social skills groups are extremely beneficial for this population. As amazing as these therapeutic options are, they’re still a large need for more therapeutic options for people of this population. One area that has been neglected for far too long has been the physical fitness of people with autism. Engaging in regular exercise in improving physical fitness can benefit physical health, mental health and self-confidence. All of these benefits can help people with autism become more independent and successful in their educational careers through their vocational careers. Adaptive Exercise is Worcester County’s first in-home personal training company specialized for people with autism. Our exercise autism therapy teaches people how to exercise properly and improve their quality of movement. Skills that will not only benefit them in the realm of fitness, but can help them reach higher levels of success socially, educationally and vocationally.
Because specialized exercise therapy for people with autism is a relatively new field of therapy, there is little information on how to do so safely and effectively. Our founder David Crowley turned to other more established therapeutic fields like ABA and speech language pathology to develop a specialized personal training curriculum. Taking many strategies from ABA and Speech Language Pathology and applying them to personal training procedures. These strategies have been proven to be effective in teaching people with autism. While these strategies may be being used to teach different skills and promote exercise related behavior, many of the same strategies have been being used by ABA technicians for years. There are many parallels that exist between personal training and ABA so adapting these strategies towards teaching exercise seemed obvious. After years of testing these principles in our adaptive personal training, we have refined the strategies to be highly effective teaching exercises.
We use a number of different ABA teaching strategies in our adaptive personal training for people with autism. One of the most used strategies we have adopted is the use of prompt hierarchies. Prompt hierarchies allow us to teach exercises with proper form even when athletes cannot perform them accurately on their own. Overtime through data analysis and fading these prompts our athletes can learn to perform these movements independently. There’re many different styles of prompt hierarchies, from visual prompts to physical prompts. Regardless of what type of prompt we are using through the use of these prompt hierarchies, we can monitor the level of support each athlete needs to perform and exercise accurately and fade them over time. A good example of this in regards to physical prompting, is teaching an overhead press, through physical prompting. Let’s say a child cannot perform an overhead press accurately during the assessment period. The personal trainer may have the child perform this exercise with no weights and provide hand over hand prompting for the child to be able to perform this movement with good form. Over the course of multiple training sessions this hand over hand prompting can be faded as long as the child can still maintain form integrity throughout the fading process. The ultimate goal in this example be to fade the physical prompts to the point where the child can perform overhead press with no physical prompting and still display form integrity.
Physical prompts are just one level of support we provide our athletes at Adaptive Exercise. Visual prompts or supports can be very beneficial in teaching new exercise movements and promoting good form. There are many different forms and visual prompts or supports. One example of the visual support, is the personal trainer physically modeling the exercise prior to or while the client is performing the exercise. Another form of visual prompts used by the trainers at Adaptive Exercise are rubber markers, these markers are shaped as hands, feet, arrows, or a simple circle. These visual supports help athletes understand where to put their body and how to move. Visual prompts can be faded just as physical prompts can. Let’s say a child cannot perform a standing rotation of the torso without the aid of visual prompts. The trainer maybe using a circle spot marker along with two arrows to indicate where the client should stand, as well as the directions they will moving. A client may need these visual supports when first learning the exercise, but over time the train or can fade these visual supports. This process of prompt fading can also be done with the physical modeling of exercises. The client may require personal trainer to physically model the exercise when first learning how to perform the movement. Overtime is physical model may be faded out so that the client can do the exercise independently with no visual supports.
No matter what form of support or prompting a child needs to perform and exercise, the primary focus is on then performing the exercise with good form. Some cases these supports for prompts maybe faded very slowly, or may not be fated at all. Every athlete presents their own unique abilities, and it is our job as personal trainers to provide whatever level of support they need to perform exercises safely and properly. Independence is great, but it may not be realistic for all clients. Some children will need a certain level of supports to Perform exercises in good form, and that is okay. Regardless of what level of support the child needs, they are still reaping the benefits of exercise by participating.
So how do you know if the Adaptive Exercise personal training is appropriate for your child? Are they receiving the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity each day? Only 3% of children are hitting these recommended guidelines, so odds are that Adaptive Exercise can help your child.