There’re many different strategies, philosophies and practices we use at Adaptive Exercise to make our personal training service appropriate for individuals across the autism spectrum. Some of the most proven and effective strategies have been borrowed from the field of applied behavioral analysis or ABA. These strategies help support our athletes learn and master movements as well as exercise routines. While not all of these strategies are used in each of our personal training sessions, we have a wide array of different strategies we can use to make our personal trainer the most appropriate option for any individual on the autism spectrum. The goal of our personal trainers is for each individual to progress through their fitness program. This progression may look very different from one individual to next, but regardless of what this progression looks like these ABA strategies can help us get there.
When introducing in teaching new exercises to athletes with autism, we first need to assess their current level of performance. The trainer should get a baseline of the athletes performance when instructed to perform this exercise. The trainer first can model the exercise movement for the client then instruct them to perform the movement themselves. The trainer should obtain video footage of the athlete performing the exercise for further review. Trainer should also observed the exercise from multiple angles. Each exercise is different, but in most cases the trainer can observe it from the front of the athlete and again from the side. This provides the trainer the better idea of the clients ability to perform net movement and possible deficiencies. This practice of obtaining baseline before determining the most appropriate course of action is commonly used in ABA.
Once baseline data is obtained from the personal trainer, it is time to find the most appropriate strategies to support that athlete and learning a new exercise. Some individuals learn best by visually observing the personal trainer, others excel through kinesthetic supports, and some individuals learn best through verbal instruction. Since we do not know which of these strategies will be the most effective early in the training process, we must find ways to support all these different types of learners. Physical prompting is a teaching strategy commonly used in ABA, terms of adaptive personal training, the personal trainer can manipulate the client’s body so they can perform a movement with proper form. Overtime these physical prompts can be faded, so the athlete can perform the exercise with form integrity more independently. Kinesthetic cues are another way to support athletes Learning new exercises. There many different ways we can provide kinesthetic cues, an example would be using a chair when teaching a squat. The trainer may instruct the athlete to squat to the chair before returning to stand. The chair servers as the kinesthetic cue for the athlete and this example. For athletes that learn best via verbal instruction, we can support them through modified language. Modified language reduces the complexity and amount of words used utterance so that the message can be more easily interpreted and understood by the individual. An example the personal trainer using modified language to teach an exercise would be saying “bend knees, jump up” to teach a standing jump. This utterance contains only the most necessary information to be able to perform the exercise. Modified language makes following verbal instructions easier for individuals who struggle with receptive language. Visual supports are another way we can support athletes and learning new exercises. Visual support maybe as simple as the trainer physically modeling an exercise for the athlete. But, there are other ways we can provide visual supports when teaching new exercises. The trainer could use video modeling, visual schedules, mirrors or cameras to show the athlete their own movements or spot markers. Different types of spot markers are some of the most common visual supports used in our training Adaptive Exercise. These markers are typically made of rubber and are shaped as circles, hands, feet or arrows. These markers indicate where to place your hands and feet, and can help indicate how to move.
While all of these different types of supports are great to teach new exercises, they can all be faded over the course of personal training. When teaching life skills in the field of ABA, therapist typically use prompt hierarchies. A child may need physical prompting to be able to brush their teeth appropriately. Through data collection and analysis these prompts can be faded overtime to the point where the child can brush their teeth independently and accurately. In adaptive personal training we follow similar prompt hierarchies. So no matter what level of support an athlete may need when learning a new exercise, through data collection and analysis we strive to fade these prompts so that exercises can be performed accurately and more independently.
Because autism is a spectrum and each individual presents different skills, abilities and challenges not all individuals will achieve exercise independence. It is our job as adaptive personal trainers to be able to provide the most appropriate level of support for each individual to be able to progress in their fitness programming. So while we work to fade these different levels of supports, some athletes will require some level of support table to perform these movements accurately. Exercise presents risks and these risks become far more prevalent when movements are not being performed properly. In order to uphold our standards of safety our adaptive personal training sessions we must provide this appropriate level of support so that each individual can perform exercises with form integrity.
No matter what level an athlete is performing at, they are benefiting by simply engaging in physical activity. Avoidance of physical activity due to lack of ability only further contributes to the problem. This is why we must work to provide the most appropriate level of support for athletes across the autism spectrum. The ABA strategies we use an Adaptive Exercise help our athletes to learn how to exercise, and progress in their fitness programs.