Connect Life With Sport

Autism affects the life of the individual and his/her family in a very serious way. In recent years, the number of individuals with autism has increased in the world. While only one in every 2500 ...

Individuals with ASD feel love, happiness, sadness and pain like all people, but they have difficulty expressing themselves. Like everyone else, they have feelings, thoughts and legal rights. Children with ASD expect to be recognised, understood and accepted by society both in education and social life within the framework of equal opportunities. The only solution for them is an approach that is moulded with love, patience and understanding and supported by a well-planned education. With this project, educators were taught how to use sports as a tool to improve self-care skills, psychomotor, interpersonal and communication skills of children with ASD, and good practices in this field were shared in different countries to increase institutional competences. It has been proved that sport is very effective in the development of individuals with autism. However, the scarcity and inadequacy of studies on sports education draws attention. With this project, the coordinative sports training programme prepared for children with autism was taught to trainers. In this context, the general aim of the project is to increase the competences of educators working with mild autistic children in order to improve the social and psycho-motor skill

Project participants were educators working for autistic children, parents of autistic children and autistic children. Apart from the institutions' own staff, 10 autistic children and their parents were involved in the implementations. In order to realise the project objectives, 5 mobilities could be carried out. In these mobilities, programme planning was made, education models of different countries were examined and their pros and cons were compared. Afterwards, the project countries were visited and the practices were observed in their natural environments. As a result of these observations, good practice examples were selected in line with the ideas of the project partners. In this context, the first form of the quidebook was given. After reviewing the good practices, a joint action plan was prepared, followed by a joint training of trainers and then practical work for autistic children and families. The materials were prepared by the team of relevant organisations through a workshop. In this context, questionnaires were created to get the opinions of the families and good practice examples were realised within the university for the education of autistic children. After the realisation of good practice examples, training of trainers was given and the implementation phase of this training was started in a special education institution. Here, the trainers contributed to the improvement of the quality of life, social skills and self-care skills of children with ASD through sports by using the teaching techniques they learnt during their training. During this implementation, the project participants responsible for the training of trainers followed the training process and prevented possible problems. During the trainings, various games were played and activities were carried out in nature. For dissemination, a social network site was created, newsletters were prepared, posters and brochures were printed and a handbook was printed at the end of the project. Two spot films were prepared, the first at the beginning of the project and the second at the end of the project. In order to measure success, a questionnaire was administered to families and partner organisation staff, and periodic meetings were held with families and organisation staff. Activities were organised with the families of children with ASD. At the end of the project, a panel was organised by the Turkish partners to transfer good practices to the institutions.