Are you running (or planning to run) group programs?
Maybe you’re an adapted PE teacher in your 7th week of the school year, or a clinical director in a day program who wants to start bringing fitness to your adult members.
As you know, group programs come with many challenges…
– Different physical, behavioral/motivational, and cognitive needs and abilities
– Approrpiate exercise selection
– How to scale activities
– Effective language and communication
There are a few strategies that lead to momentous program progress when running group programs. They make the difference between “getting through” and “thriving in” those 30-50 minutes.
Group programming takes planning. And that’s extra important with the autism and neurodivergent population. You are guaranteed to have different levels of physical, adaptive, and cognitive abilities. This means understanding how to structure each session to meet those specific needs for each athlete and have contingencies in place for when things go right and when they go right-ish🙄
1) Have your baselines. Knowing the current physical, adaptive, and cognitive skills for each athlete (as much info as you can get) is instrumental in planning out both exercises and behavior support.
2) Use Circuits. Using circuits/stations eliminates waiting/logjams and enables the coach to use the appropriate exercise modification or progression with each athlete.
3) Harness the power of scalability. Each athlete will have different levels of physical abilities, motivation, and coachability. Scaling means finding the right level of challenge for the exercise, reinforcement/contingencies, and coaching language.