Sports & Physical Education
Teaching Methods for Autistics
Autism diagnosis gives a spectrum score. It cannot specify what is an autistic experience. That is why autistic people are described clinically as well as through life testimonies. An education program has to be arrived at through detailed observation of the child on several parameters. For a Sports / Physical Education (PE) Teacher or Coach, the main concerns for evaluation are: (i) social interaction (ii) social communication (iii) different sensory experience (iv) repetitive physical movements and (v) highly focused restricted interests.
Social interaction issues include difficulties in interacting, no or little eye contact, lack of interest in others and not showing typical emotional responses. Social communication relates to verbal profile of the child, difficulty in initiating and sustaining conversation, idiosyncratic language use and literal interpretation. Thrown in with this are the challenges of sensory over and under sensitivity in seven areas: sight/visual, sound/auditory, Taste, Touch, Smell, Balance/vestibular, Body Awareness (proprioception). Some stimulus maybe attractive and some maybe aversive. So, an autistic child deals with enormous loads of deficits and self-regulation. An on-field PE class must be cognizant of these realities. The child’s special needs are his autistic identity and the teacher has to run a sports program and eke out performances by navigating this maze.
Understanding & Trust is Critical
The Theory of Mind (ToM) states that autistics show no awareness of understanding the mental states of others, similarly neurotypicals also do not understand what goes on with autistics, leading to what is known as the double empathy problem. Having emotional relationships with autistic children is critical to their learning. A personal bond between the teacher and student removes stress and anxiety. Prior to a task, a child may seek relief in preferred sensory stimuli like rocking, spinning, stimming, finger and body movements. The teacher then has to slowly wean away the child and direct attention to the task. Rest and relaxation techniques have to be in-built during practice sessions. This builds trust.
What should a PE Coach do?
Some of the stereotypes surrounding autism and physical activity are autistics do not play team games and they do not listen in sessions. The Coach should not be influenced by these notions. Neither should stereotypical practices of blowing whistles on-field and off it be deployed, as this can be stressful for autistic students. Instead, instructions through picture / symbol boards and gentle verbal commands should be delivered.
PE development is not possible by one’s own effort, the Coach through his guidance makes the change. The Coach has to design variety of activities: assess the student’s motivation, health status, stamina, co-ordination, ensure safe physical and social environment and work on the student’s fitness. The Coach must slow down his pace if required and make the student comfortable. Adaptations and a low arousal environment, aids concentration. Activities should be implemented in a planned manner.
The Coach should initiate his students with basic activities:
(i) Throwing
(ii) Catching
(iii) Eye-hand coordination
(iv) Using a bat
(v) Balancing
(vi) Running
(vii) Make the children learn how to follow instructions (No High decibels; voice intonation has to be proper)
(viii) Make the children to follow and learn from demonstration
(ix) Jumping
(x) Kicking a ball
(xi) Do one-to one training before starting group activity
When working with a group of children, a Coach must have support workers.
It is often said that autistic people have inadequate generalizing skills and cannot transfer something they have learnt in one situation to another one. This should not be seen as a fait accompli and through patient teaching, this challenge can be overcome. Coaches must have faith and hope for their autistic students. They must have a good working relationship with autism families.
Communication Issues in Sports Training
Eye contact is difficult for autistics. They may listen and pay attention even while not looking at the person giving instructions. Some may take longer to process information, so reaction time is longer. At times there may be no reaction; in such situations repeat the instruction or modify it. The autistic participant may also misunderstand the instruction. The Coach should use clear, concise communication and avoid speaking in long sentences. A keyword approach helps. The autistic student should be allowed time to receive, prioritize / sequence and process the information. In drills and PE classes, Coaches may use five kinds of prompting: (i) Physical, (ii) Verbal, (iii) Visual, (iv) Demonstration, and (v) Gesture.
Teaching usually begins with physical prompting which is the highest form of support. Gesture is the least support model after which the prompt is gradually faded out. The level of prompting will be dependent on the student’s abilities and motor performance. Multiple prompts can be used simultaneously - Physical+Verbal+Gesture. For eg: Throw the ball can combine all three. Since imitation skills are a challenge for autistic students, demonstrations have to be calibrated by dividing one activity into several discrete steps. Hence, instead of doing the whole demonstration at one go, it has to be divided into separate chunks. Thereafter, the chunks have to be joined in a sequence one after the other and the whole activity created with start-finish.
The Coach must name the student so that they know they are being spoken to. They must also make sure that the student is paying attention before an instruction is issued.
To induct interest in Sports, Coaches may introduce digital games like Wii Sports, Kinect Sports, Temple Run. Since autism is a spectrum, needs maybe variable and some students would require more help. A bad lesson is one where instructions are unclear and no demonstration is given.
If the Coach simplifies the sport, graduates from simple to complex tasks, has customized ways of achieving outcome and sets personalized targets for each student, he can achieve good communication with the student and ensure sound implementation of a lesson plan.
Tackling Sensory Issues
Oversensitivity to stimuli, lack of understanding of spatial matters make contact sports, viz, football, rugby, catch difficult. Coaches have to initiate and develop slowly and patiently. Autistics have a fragmented view of the world; their sensory systems are deregulated, function discretely and have to be slowly integrated. Coaches have to know about the proprioceptive needs of their students. Proprioception is a sense of body awareness system that tell us where our bodies are in space and how different body parts are moving. Proprioceptors are situated in muscles and joints of our bodies.
Coaches should be aware of the vestibular needs of their students. Situated in the inner ear, vestibular systems are related to balance and posture and process how fast bodies are moving. Sports and PE are important for developing proprioceptive and vestibular awareness.
Dyspraxia affects the planning of what and how to do a task and is associated with difficulties in balance and requires the learning of both gross and fine motor skills. This means learning physical activities may take time. Coaches should include PE programmes for improving motor skills like dribbling, throwing, dropping, catching and jumping.
A commonly observed physiology in autism is hypotonia or low muscle tone. Hypotonia should be evaluated by an Occupational Therapist (OT) and appropriate exercise list recommended. On the other extreme, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is also seen as a concomitant of autism. Sports & PE are important for such students to burn off excess energy and become disciplined.
Some autistics have a high pain threshold because of either hyposensitivity or their monotropic focus being engaged elsewhere. Adding items to the single attention tunnel can also create sensory overload, rise in stress level and trigger meltdown. Autistics might even be unaware after getting injured. Coaches need to be very vigilant. There has to be an equipment and a ground plan. Sensory preferences have to be factored in while selecting equipment.
Monotropism and Spiky Profiles
Monotropism means single channel attention. Autistics pay attention to one thing at a time, making multi-tasking difficult. Restrictive, repetitive behaviors (RRBs) and intense interests can be traced to monotropism trait. They are also a coping mechanism, leisure stimulation and maybe even an existential need. Intense interest often leads to total immersion in activity creating a ‘flow state.’ An autistic experiences flow state when he/she likes learning a skill and resources associated with that skill and becomes fully engaged in managing that activity. However, boredom can arise if the format is static, the flow state can return if new interesting components are added. Conversely, if the task is too difficult, it can cause frustration, aversion and flight (going away) from the presented task.
Related to this is the spiky profile, what Uta Frith in her celebrated work “Autism-Explaining the Enigma” calls ‘islets of abilities’. Autistics have a spiky profile of abilities and confidence, they are very good at certain things and find certain things very difficult. This spiky profile in physical activities must be clearly tabulated. Coaches may consider the STEP (Space, Task, Equipment & Player) framework of National Autistic Society, UK for planning activities.
How to handle meltdowns
Communication difficulties, sensory differences and overload cause anxiety. Autistics may not be aware of stress building up and then there is a sudden meltdown. By paying attention to physical and environmental sensitivities as well as social intonations of giving instructions, coaches can reduce stress and anxiety in sporting sessions.
Placing multi-tasking demands on autistic students, expecting them to listen to you speak while they are doing something else can cause stress. If the stressors are left unattended, they become triggers and then meltdowns become chronic causing distress for the child and disrupting his learning cycle. So, there has to be high awareness about stress factors. If a student is anxious, hyper, or having a meltdown, let the recovery happen through calming and then the instructions can be given. Coaches should be open to a variety of communication styles.
Low noise levels, avoidance of extreme temperatures, visual inputs and less people make for a conducive environment and minimize chances of a meltdown.
Benefits of PE
Cognition, discipline, stamina and endurance built through sports and PE classes will be useful in Special Education, ADL, SLT, OT, Dance and Art classes. Students experience motor skill improvements and learn to follow instructions. PE activities develop perseverance, eye for detail, social-psychological skills and the faculty of indicating choices, a key executive functioning ability.
In Conclusion
The coach has to be a mentor and a buddy. Scaffold with praise but praise has to be realistic. Gradually coaches must shift praise to learning responsibility, i.e. students are expected to perform without praise. Coaches should create opportunities for partnering students with neurotypical peers, volunteers and supervise the process. This way, learning will become a social engagement platform and help in removing the isolation of autistic children. Coaches with their work can make sports a potent agency for inclusion.