When I first began researching developing a company that specializes in personal training for people with autism, it was very difficult to find any companies that were offering such services. I found countless articles stating the many benefits of exercise for people with autism, but very few articles stating how to go about this form of adaptive personal training. Many of the services I was able to find we’re things like sensory gyms, inclusion sports programs and if a few adaptive exercise programs. Sensory gyms are great for people with autism, but they don’t necessarily inspire individuals to exercise or engage in physically active activities. Inclusion sports programs are not appropriate for all individuals across the spectrum. They can be very beneficial, but for children who do not have a sufficient level of skills they are limited. The common theme I found around adaptive sports or exercise programs, is that there was less of a focus on adapting to programming in more of a focus on adapting to standards. Meaning that many of these programs simply had a lower level of expectation.
This was alarming, after learning more about how beneficial exercise can be for people in this population. Having worked in special education and ABA programs, I knew how to support individuals with autism learning a wide array of different skills. I learned to use ABA teaching strategies to teach life skills and academics. I worked as a speech language pathologist assistant to help children improve their speech and language. I also work closely with the physical and occupational therapist. Many times we were educated by then how to follow their exercise recommendations for the purpose of physical or occupational therapy.
In my years working in the field of special education I’ve seen a wide range of symptomology that would directly benefit from engaging in regular exercise. Children who have developed for poor nutritional habits, such as, eating unhealthy choices like chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese and fast food several days a week. I have observed many of my students struggle with weight gain and obesity. Other symptomology such as low muscle tone, poor motor planning and the lack of coordination or balance were common amongst many students in this population. When I went to the internet to search for the prevalence of many of these symptoms for people with autism, I was shocked. Large percentages of people with autism struggle many of the same symptoms. This is when I knew that I needed to create a company to help service people with autism who struggle with many of these symptoms.
Exercise offers many benefits for people who engage in it regularly. People who engage in regular physical activity are less likely to become obese, overweight or develop type II diabetes. They’re also like less likely to develop cardiovascular disease and many different forms of cancer. Exercise promotes strength and muscle gains. You can also help improve motor planning, coordination, balance and proprioception. Exercise also offers a wide range of unique benefits for people with autism. Engaging in regular exercise has been shown to promote social skills, decreased maladaptive behaviors, decrease stereotypic behaviors, increase time on task and help in emotional regulation. Many other autism therapies, such as ABA therapy, speech language pathology, occupational therapy and physical therapy work to address many of the same areas. Exercise therapy for people with autism focuses on improving physical health, but by engaging in regular exercise, it can address many other areas as well.
At Adaptive Exercise we use ABA teaching strategies and added supports to provide the highest standard of specialized personal training for people on the autism spectrum. Some of the ABA strategies we use our physical prompting, positive reinforcement, behavioral shaping, graduated guidance, behavior specific praise and prompt hierarchies. The strategies have been proven to be effective in teaching a number of different behaviors, and in did deterring undesired behaviors. The strategies along with added support’s, allow our trainers to provide the most appropriate and beneficial personal training for people with autism. The programming is individualized through our Personalized Exercise Plans, and tracked by both video and data. This allows our trainers to monitor your child’s performance, make changes when needed and make sure your child is progressing through their fitness program.
Another service we offer at Adaptive Exercise is our adaptive group exercise classes. These classes using number of the same ABA teaching strategies and added supports to provide a unique, social exercise experience. The class is designed to introduce people on the autism spectrum to exercise and teach them how to exercise properly. The classic has been highly successful with children with a wide range of both physical and mental abilities. It is fun and far different from any other the group exercise options available for people with autism. The class is broken into different phases. The first phase and one of the most important is the warm-up. This warm-up teaches children how to prepare their bodies for exercise. A group instruction phase, which consist of the personal trainer providing exercise instructions to the whole group in providing individual support or prompts when necessary. The pullout phase, where individuals from the group are provided an opportunity to receive individual instruction from the personal trainer. Lastly, the group goes through a cooldown phase. Similarly to the warm-up phase, this phase of the class teaches children how to cool or calm the bodies down after engaging in exercise.
As our company grows and we hope to be able to offer our specialized personal training services to more autism families across the state of Massachusetts. We hope to offer more group classes, to applied behavioral analysis programs, recreational centers and gyms across the state. The group class offers a unique leisure opportunity that is social, therapeutic and more affordable for autism families. If you’re interested in learning more about our specialized personal training services or about our group exercise classes visit our website www.adaptiveexercisenow.com, call 508-735-2949, or send email to info@adaptiveexercisenow.com.