Autism is defined by the Autism Society of America (ASA) as: “Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and is the result of a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain, impacting development in the areas of social interaction and communication skills.
Autism is one of the five disorders that fall under the umbrella of Pervasive Developmental Disorders ( PDD ), a category of neurological disorders characterized by “severe and pervasive impairment in several areas of development.
For a healthy lifestyle, Moving and being physically active are important.
An ASD child will move actively such as spinning, running, etc. But these movements are not meaningful.
Lower levels of engagement in gameplay, less participation in sports, and higher obesity rates than their peers are also observed in those individuals with ASD.
So routine exercise for a healthy lifestyle is important for those individuals with ASD
How does routine exercise benefit ASD children:
- Stereotypical behaviors, hyperactivity, and aggression may decrease when vigorous activity for more than 20 minutes was done.
- Helps to better engage in the environment
- Helps to promote weight loss
- Helps to lead to better overall health.
- Improving motor skills
- Skill-related fitness
- Social functioning
- Muscular strength and endurance
- Physical activity can decrease
- Stereotypic behavior
- Aggression
- Off-task behavior
- Elopement
- Stress
- Physical activity can increase
- Social interaction
- Attention span/time on task
- Health and fitness
- Positive Behaviors
Individuals with ASD have a very active lifestyle and this will help them to reduce their most motor issues and increase self-confidence.
How you can help in routine exercise
Be a role model to your child by showing an active lifestyle to the child
Share aspirations and strategies that you understand from your lifestyle and PE teacher’s lifestyle to the child so it can be a motivation for the child to do the exercise.
Help to make fun movements
Play games that require cooperation than competition
play activities that build skills.
Motivate your child for doing exercise
Understand what all the activities are taught by the PE teacher and arrange the settings according to that to do it in the home
Give enough time for the child to perform the exercise.
Observe the child’s exercise at school and try to do the same at home
Engage the child in recreational activity program so that it may increase the confidence of the child for doing exercise.
Many people with autism are visual learners. So Visual supports such as task cards, physical demonstrations, and video modeling can use.
Activities like hiking, bike riding, walking can give and activities that can use senses are also good.
Finding out child’s interested activity can encourage the child to do it more often
Parent can make their ASD child as physically literate by helping them to build skills by supporting them in meaningful movement experiences, understanding the physical education requirement that the child needs, and then help for those activities during the routine exercise.
Child can use those skills throughout his /her lifetime to access social opportunities, help provide self-regulation and live a healthy and active lifestyle.
So as a parent you are the role model to the child.
As compared to those with normal children, ASD children do less structured exercise. So it’s the parent’s duty to make sure that those children are doing the exercise regularly. And Build a healthy lifestyle for those children.
