Autism Spectrum Disorders in Sport

Unlike their typical peers, children and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have few opportunities to experience the more advanced, age-appropriate physical activities which truly challenge them. Caboolture Disability Indoor Cricket Inc provides this opportunity and the underlying instructional approach to realize it. 

Learning a sport is best accomplished through sustained and repeated immersion, coupled with the expectation that each player can in fact reach his or her next level. We have chosen Indoor Cricket that can be “extreme” to an ASD person but which can also be mastered by that each player through incremental learning.     For example, it can be daunting to a player to look down the cricket pitch that he’s being asked to hit the ball hard & run, but his/her success makes him/her safe and he is coached on how to make it at their own ability – and once he/she does it they find it is exhilarating, fun, and rewarding. It can also seem forbidding to someone with autism to be placed in the middle of a playing court with nets & background noise, as the coach walks away but he/she has a buddy beside him/her, and once he/she moving running he/she sees that he can hold on and enjoy the exhilarating ride as he/she begins to love every minute of the experience. Then he’s ready for the next step – to become a team player.

The sport chosen by Caboolture Disability Indoor Cricket will foster motor planning and skills that can lead to higher cognitive function and improved behaviours.  The activities chosen can be individualized, are free of complicated rules, and are intrinsically fun and motivating to the average ASD child no matter what level of mastery they have achieved.   Disability Indoor Cricket is available on Monday afternoons 4-30pm -5-30pm at Caboolture Indoor Sports , so learning gained at the players ability can be generalized and strengthened each week by attending training sessions.

The goals for our players are fourfold:

(1) to foster the long term incorporation of recreational sports into daily life which is so important to human physical  health;

(2) to improve cognitive, linguistic, motor, and social skills through physical action and group interaction;

(3) to promote personal growth and independence.

(4) to feel an active part of a team.

There are many benefits. By participating in sports, especially ball games, the player will be included in some of the most popular social games including SEQ Tournament. A lot of persons with ASD have a tendency to avoid activities like this because they know they’re not good at it. Autism often brings motor impairments which affect things such as catching and throwing accuracy or their ability to run fast, Not only will they shy away from playing, but their peers may intentionally exclude them because they feel they’ll hurt their chances of winning. Often times, however, they’ll be invited to play merely because the others need an extra person to make two even teams so they can have a game. This does not happen at Caboolture Disability Indoor Cricket because, the player at they own ability.