At Adaptive Exercise we the offer the highest standards of in-home personal training for people with autism, making us one of Massachusetts’ most unique autism therapy companies. We currently provide in-home service to the Worcester County area of Massachusetts (some service locations are, Worcester, Shrewsbury, Auburn, Boylston, West Boylston, Holden, Marlborough, Hudson, Westborough, Southborough, Northborough, and Berlin). To learn if your town is in our current service region call or email us today.
Still not sure what Adaptive Exercise’s in-home personal training consists of, or are you unsure if your child is ready for personal training? The exercise programming is completely adapted and specialized for people on the spectrum. Our trainers use ABA teaching strategies, added support’s, along with other adaptations to make your child’s exercise experience positive. Like any other autism therapy such as speech pathology, physical therapy, occupational therapy or ABA therapy, we use a systematic approach to make sure your child is progressing.
Our exercise autism therapy begins with the assessment process. This process can last 1 to 4 sessions a consist of formal and informal assessments. In order to not overwhelm your child and make exercise aversive to them, we collect only the most necessary information and move at a pace that’s comfortable to them. We utilize a variety of assessments to determine your child’s baseline performance before developing the personalize exercise plan. These assessments maybe a simple as performing basic exercise movements, or more complex assessments that look at things like cardiovascular ability, or balance. But early on in our training process the focus is on establishing rapport with each and every client. Many children with autism do not have a history of working with a personal trainer or may not have much experience with exercise at all. This is just one reason why we work with your child to assess their abilities at a pace that is comfortable to them. The last thing we want is to create negative experience early in the training process.
All of our formal and informal assessments are tracked by data collected by the personal trainer. The personal trainer will also collect video recordings of the assessments for further review. Data is great but when it comes to movement further analysis maybe required in order to make the best possible decisions regarding future programming. After the assessment. Our personal trainers review video and data to develop goal recommendations for the first personalized exercise plan. These recommendations along with the information collected from the family are all considered when developing the goals that will be the focus of your child’s exercise plan. This process ensures that both families and professionals are working together as a team in your child’s exercise programing. This this team process is designed to mirror the individualized education plan process used by schools. Similar processes are also performed in other autism therapy.
The target goals of each and every personalize exercise plan vary greatly. Because they’re based off your child’s unique performance levels, and abilities. Some children maybe working to learn simple exercises, other children maybe working to increase their strength, in other children might be learning workout routines. Regardless of the goal, they are all written using specific language, time bound, realistic, relevant and measurable. This style of goal writing makes tracking and monitoring progression or regression, as easy as collecting data. Information that is critical in ensuring your child’s success in their exercise program. Autism therapy, in this case exercise therapy without data to monitor progress or the lack of progress is impossible to determine if it is successful.
Once the assessment process has been completed and the personalized exercise plan has been developed the real exercise programing may begin. Our sessions begin with a quick warm-up to prepare the body for exercise. This warm-up maybe different for each client and in may vary in length. Even though many of our clients are not exercising at a level where a warm-up is absolutely necessary, building safe and appropriate exercise habits early on is the goal. Similar to our warm-up we wrap up each session with the quick exercise cooldown. Again this may not be a necessity for your child’s programming, but building these habits early in the exercise process, encourage and promote safety later in the exercise process. The bulk of our personal training it Is centered around the philosophy of functional movement training. Personal training movements that will not just affect your child in the realm of exercise but in their activities of daily living as well. Movements such as pushing, pulling, bending and lifting, Single leg movements, rotational movements and locomotion.
The reason we focus on functional movement training is because our personal training is autism therapy. Sure we are looking to improve levels fitness, but it is even more impactful if it can impact their lives every single day. Functional movements are the movements we perform in our everyday lives. So person who performs improper functional movements is putting bad stress on their body every single day. Stress that may lead to more serious bodily harm or conditions later in life.
Our personal trainers track level of independence, the amount of reps and sets, along with intensity for all of our exercises. This data is great to monitor ensure progress until when programming changes need me in the case of lack of progress or regression. Say your child has not been making progress in terms of learning a specific exercise. Our trainers may determine that is exercise not appropriate for your child at this current time. In which case between your can try teaching other prerequisite movements in retargeting this exercise at a later point in the training. On the other end of this, let’s say your child has been performing a specific exercise with proper form for several weeks. Our trainers may determine that they should increase their repetitions, sets, or increase the weight being used for this movement. All of this is possible because of our extensive data collection and video monitoring.