Education Commons^™

Fostering Communication Through Physical Activity, Christine E. Ashby, Casey Woodfield, Brianna Dickens, Katherine Vroman, Katie Heath

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

Many individuals with autism experience difficulties with reliable, meaningful communication often impacting their academic and social engagement. As the first and most frequent communication partners, parents of children with autism may struggle initiating or maintaining meaningful communicative interactions, and thus require training, tools, and support. This article describes an approach to coaching parents in fostering meaningful, reciprocal communication through recreational activities as part of a larger physical activity program for parents and families of children with autism. It describes a Cycle of Communication framework as a tool for parents to recognize opportunities to structure and support their children’s communicative attempts …