Coaches Special needs gymnastics

[Mustanggal99]

I have recently been approached by parents who want to put their kiddos in gymnastics. One has moderate autism and another has a handful of physical disabilities. I was just wanting to put some feelers out there asking what other gyms do with different ability kiddos. Do you try to mainstream or have separate classes? What kind of skills do you have them do or lesson plans or just free explore? I would love to grow this more and get some of these awesome kids in the gym if they want to learn the sport. Any one else out there deal with this?
We are in a small town with not a lot of support for things like this to make things harder.

 

[emilykatherine]

I wen to a gym that did a whole class just for special needs kids... They had them do preschool skill like forward rolls and cartwheels an stuff and the others sat around and clapped as they waited to go and the went on the trampolines and and a few other things when I'm older I wanna coach special needs kids hope this helped

 

[bookworm]

The gyms around us have specific Special Olympic classes for kids with special needs...which have varied from severe autism, Down's, PDD to name a few. There is a curriculum and specific routines and skills for this and their own "Summer Games" . The gymnasts in the gym who were 12 and older (I believe) got certified through Special Olympics to be volunteer coaches, and they used these classes as their volunteer work for school. It might be a program you want to look into at Special Olympics: Home Page

 

[CoachGoofy]

My gym is tiny, so the majority of our kids with disabilities get put in my classes bc I like teaching those kids. If they cannot do an integrated class, we (well, I...) offer private lessons at a discount and make sure they know that if they get 3 or more kids who'd benefit from a special needs class, we'd absolutely open one & I already have a team kid helper all lined up (she is fabulous. A bit neurodivergent herself. Talented athlete and patient like woah with younger kids & students with more support needs).

My dream program would be starting out with a group of special needs kids in, like, a superbeginner class. Then next level is 3/4 kids with disabilities, 1/4 kids without (thus starting integration) and less basic but still basic and slower moving. And then a half and half class that ended about where our beginner level classes do. And then they can go into beginner or intermediate/preteamish when they're ready & be in an integrated setting, training at their own speed for T&T competitions. That's actually my goal in my gymnastics life.

A coach can dream, right? We have had a number of competitive athletes, very competitive in some cases, on the autism spectrum, & one of our frequent open gym customers has significant physical disabilities. There are a lot of things that we've done to try to make gymnastics accessible to everyone at their level.

*I get reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally excited about this, sorry...)

 

[Ex member]

My 9 year old dd has recently joined a disability trampolining group at our local gymnastics centre, from what I can see they work to a similar program to normal rec classes and do the same badges in both Trampolining and Gymnastics, there is a difference with there being more coaches - ones that are trained and still do ongoing training in Disability Gymnastics/Trampolining. Our local gym offers classes in both Gymnastics and Trampolining for up to 1 hour each session depending on the individual need of the child, I had to fill in a form detailing my dd's needs (hers is physical) and the coaches then create a care plan and after each session they talk to each parent about how their child has done in the lesson and what they want to help them during the next lesson.

My dd has had her name on awaiting list for the disability gymnastics sessions ( very popular in our area but due to the small class sizes there is a waiting list), my daughter did her usual trampolining lesson and was the only child that turned up (probably due to the fact that it is the summer holidays and families are taking their vacations), my daughter was asked to have a go at some gymnastics stuff and when the lesson was finished the coaches came up to me and asked if dd wanted to join the development group to train for competitions, my dd being nearly 10 is old enough to make her own mind up and she said yes, dd now goes 6 hours a week (2 hours per session every other day). I didn't even know there was a development group for special needs gymnastics/ trampolining, I knew they did take part in some competitions but thought that was on a rec level and not a competitive one.

 

[BlairBob]

I've done it a few ways.

Mainly it's been with autustic kids. There were a few other kids like one being albino (which means his eyesight was poor) and another who had some neurological learning impediment ( couldn't process audial cues? but was a normal kid otherwise ).

1. Said kid attends class with a tutor that is employed by the parents. So it's kind of like mommy and me. One of these kids had some verbal abilities and was pretty well behaved. Another little boy had basically no clue what was going on ( but very cute 6yo ) and didn't talk. I've had a few that attended class normally solo as well.

2. I know some gyms try to gather them up into a special needs class. They have to figure out the schedules but there is a demand for it. Gym takes names and numbers and tries to call all the parents and arrange a time after finding an available time with perhaps a coach with experience ( and desire to coach them ).

3. Private lessons with or without the tutor. I worked with one boy privately but seeing as the lessons were through the city gym, the rates were pretty good for them ( and I got paid hourly so it was poor for me but I didn't do many privates and I loved the gym and was paid well so it wasn't an issue ). I believe the gym billed private lessons at $40/45 per hour. Pretty good deal.