This blog was created to serve parents, therapeutic professionals, personal trainers and teachers of children (and adults) with autism. To provide organized knowledge, instruction, but most importantly to raise awareness of the need for people with autism to exercise, increase activity levels and lead healthier happier lives.
Why do children & adults with autism need exercise?
“Disturbing statistics suggest that children with autism are 40% more likely to be overweight and obese compared to their typically developed peers (1).” This may be correlated to the higher rates of sedentary behavior within the autism population (2). There are a number of other physical concerns that often come up with people with autism, including poor motor skills, postural faults, and low muscle tone. All of these hindrances can be addressed and corrected through exercise.
The reasoning behind Adaptive Exercise
When I began my research to develop Adaptive Exercise, I found countless articles stating the benefits of exercise for people with autism, but was unable to find any actionable information.
- Exercise can improve physical fitness (3)
- Exercise can improve motor planning (4)
- Exercise can increase muscular strength (4)
- Exercise can increase endurance (4)
- Exercise can improve social functioning (4)
- Exercise can increase time on task (3)
- Exercise can increase correct responding (3)
- Exercise can decrease aggression (3)
- Exercise can decrease self-injury (3)
- Exercise can reduce stereotypical behaviors (5)
The number of positive articles on the topic, motivated me to develop standards and procedures to effectively teach and improve the levels of fitness in people with autism. My background in speech language pathology and applied behavior analysis (ABA) were the starting point as to how I would deliver my instructions. The knowledge I acquired becoming a personal trainer served as the framework of my programming. I truly think that knowledge in all these areas was critical for me to develop a truly effective mode of teaching people with autism how to exercise safely and properly.
There are several like-minded fitness professionals across the country who work with this population. However, the rates of autism do not appear to be going down, so the need for more specialists trained to work with people with special needs is only going to grow. This blog will aim to provide you with the highest quality of information on the topic, but also to tell you how to apply this knowledge to improve the quality of life for your child with autism.
Adaptive Exercise offers in-home training, group classes, virtual training and now adaptive exercise videos. The focus remains the same in each of our services, to improve the lives of people with autism and other special needs through exercise. The benefits of exercise for people with special needs is well documented, but this information is not widely known. Most people know that exercise is important, but would be hard pressed to explain why, aside from to get thin. I still hear from parents and teachers that a certain child does not need to exercise because they are already thin. This train of thought is not only inaccurate, but a disservice to people with special needs.
In my years working with individuals with special needs, I have worked with adults, children and adolescents. In client’s homes, ABA programs, schools and offering speech therapy. In every setting, there was one alarming consistency that I observed. Many of these individuals were eating unhealthy meals every day and living primarily sedentary lifestyles. There are many different reasons for this, but still there was little emphasis on educating these individuals about health and nutrition. Exercise was attempted to be taught by ABA technicians, therapist and teachers, but why would a population of individuals who need more support be trained by professionals not educated in personal training? A neurotypical person wouldn’t go to an ABA therapist for exercise guidance.
Unfortunately, not all personal trainers are equipped or educated in ways to work with people with autism and other special needs. So, this leaves us in a difficult position of where to turn. Autism specialized personal training is a new field, but it has been gaining popularity over the past few years. At Adaptive Exercise our approach borrows from more traditional therapeutic fields like ABA and Speech Language Pathology. Using some of these ABA and Speech teaching strategies, and our knowledge as personal trainers we have created a unique approach to exercise training. This approach is safe, individualized and fun. It may not look like what you would see in a traditional personal training session. Different strategies like physical prompting may be required to support an individual. But these strategies may be what that individual needs to learn an exercise or to be able to perform it safely. It is not just the teaching strategies that make our training different at Adaptive Exercise. We carefully select each piece of equipment used in our exercise training sessions to be safe and functional. This means using primarily sand-based weights. This allows individuals to progress and use resistance more safely. Other pieces of equipment such as resistance bands, medicine balls and visual markers, are great tools for learning functional exercises.
Exercise is one of the most beneficial skill sets that one can learn. It can lead to living a healthy and happy life. People with autism and other special needs should have an option that is appropriate and accessible to be able to learn these skills. At Adaptive Exercise we hope to be a large contributor towards improving the lives of people with autism.
Curtin C, Anderson SE, Must A, Bandini L. The prevalence of obesity in children with autism: a secondary data analysis using nationally representative data from the National Survey of Children’s Health. BMC Pediatrics. 2010;10(11):1–5. [PMC free article [PubMed]
Children with autism more sedentary than their peers, study shows. (2014, September 26). Retrieved September 16, 2018, from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140926141014.htm
Griffin, W., & AFIRM Team. (2015). Exercise. Chapel Hill, NC: National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder, FPG Child Development Center, University of North Carolina. Retrieved from http://afirm.fpg.unc.edu/exercise