{loadposition loginemployer}
Blog
Dad To Dad
Dear Mr Hughes, Thank You for taking the time to write this article. For a father with a 12 year old low functioning ASD son I feel what you feel. I am also starting a program this summer, with our maiden launch Sat Jun 25th and will keep you informed. I may need to call for advice all the time.Please don’t consider me a pest. Thank You Sincerely, John C Power Executive Director Project:Believe The Justin Power Foundation 501(c)3 PO Box 727 North Falmouth, MA 02556-0727 EIN 27-4497350 www.linkedin.com/in/thepower “We Speak For Those Who Can Not”@
College TR Fans: Graham Hall Team Race to be Scored Live!
Check out the USNA link to keep track of the Graham Hall Team Race this weekend.
http://usna.edu/sailing/newsite/ic/GrahamHall2011/main.htm
…And check out the ICSA Rankings soon for our first update!
about A parents view
Excelent review, I enjoyed much.
A Parents View: Autism & Teaching Sailing
A parent comes to you as a sailing instructor with a child in tow. You give a furtive glance to the child, as usual you are hoping to make a connection. The child seems oddly unresponsive, and you realize he is avoiding eye contact.
Meanwhile the parent is hurling acronyms at you: ASD,ASP, PDD-NOS, Autism Aspergers. They all mean just one thing: that you have a kid who is on the Autism Aspergers spectrum, and you are going to have to modify your methods somewhat. Your gut feeling is that you have a kid who does not want to be there. You are getting none of the usual cues from the kid– no eye contact, no looking longingly at the boats rigged. Still you say to yourself, “We try to teach everyone.” What you don’t realize is that you have a potentially super dedicated sailor; and if you treat the opportunity correctly, you may well be able to give that child the kind of satisfaction and sense of accomplishment that he has never felt in his or her life before. A true lifelong sailor.
Sailors tend to be self sufficient and enjoy their own company. You probably know someone who is only really happy when he is sailing. It’s likely that the sailors you know like that are on the Autism spectrum. Some famous single handers are notably taciturn; by definition they enjoy their own company and they like everything to be in place. These are all classic autistic traits. The famous French singlehander, Bernard Moitessier, was a poster child for autism. Unable to face the adulation at the finish line in England when he was expected to win the first single handed, round- the-world race, he carried on half way around the world to a place that was in his comfort zonet,Tahiti. |
Some of the symptoms of Autism / Aspergers are:
· An inability or an unwillingness to communicate well.
· Insistence on sameness, resisting change in routine
· No real fear of danger
· Little or no eye contact
· Unresponsiveness to normal teaching methods
· Sustained odd play
· Preferring to be alone
· Noticeable physical overactivity or underactivity
· Tantrums
· Inappropriate attachment to objects
· Uneven gross and fine motor skills
· Thinking in pictures
· Learning by doing rather than watching
After a glance through these symptoms, you’ll realize that these symptoms could apply to most people– and probably many of your friends; but in this population some of these characteristics are taken to extremes. Good sailors, of course, always “think in pictures.” And who has not met a boat owner who does not have an “inappropriate attachment to an object”? –or maybe boats don’t count as inanimate objects.
All US Sailing Level 1 instructors should be familiar with the book “Teaching and Coaching Fundamentals for Sailing.” It’s a great book and not just for sailors. In the first chapter they talk about different learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Or putting it in ordinary language: show them, tell them and let them do it. With this autistic population, as with most groups, the visual and kinesthetic styles are going to work best, with the instructor reserving the auditory for verbal reinforcement. With this group your teaching will have to be more intense and sustained; but the payoffs will be greater. Make the US Sailing book your friend. It’s written by a collaboration of great people; and through its inclusive nature, it has ended up being a great guidebook for teaching these young people.
Unfortunately there are no hard and fast rules. You may have seen the Temple Grandin movie, but that won’t help much–in fact there are many fewer girls than boys who are diagnosed with this. When the book says “spectrum,” they mean just that. The fact is, not much is known about this syndrome. It all takes work, patience and perception by you as the instructor. The only thing that can be said is: “If you’ve met one kid on the spectrum, then you have experience with one kid on the spectrum. They are all different”.
Let’s talk about the learning curve. I think we all know that’s a misnomer, and it should be a learning meander. For many of these young people, learning will be in steps, or more like cliffs and plateaus. You may find yourself reinforcing and reiterating one point seemingly fruitlessly; and suddenly it will be indelibly grasped, and they are on to the next plateau.
Again as with all pupils, focus is of paramount importance. With this population, it’s a two edged sword. You’ll have no difficulty having the pupil “get their head outside of the boat. They’ll instinctively be able to view the boat from the proverbial seagull’s eye view, or any view you want. As with all pupils, however, there will inevitably be distractions; and you’ll have to redouble your efforts to keep your pupil focused. This should get easier throughout the lesson because as your young sailors progress , they are more likely to become absorbed in an activity that could have been custom made for them. The rewards will last a lifetime. Sailing will become a refuge where they can control their world and yet make it react to outside forces, just as we all do. You as the instructor may feel pretty good too.
–Gareth Hughes is the Waterfront director at Kennebunk Beach Improvement Association, www.kbia.net, and has an autistic son.
US Olympic Committee response
This was posted in Scuttlebutt 3290: By Dean Brenner, US Olympic Sailing Program Chairman I really enjoyed Joe Morris’s comments in Scuttlebutt 3289 about Olympic Development. It’s an important issue and one that the leadership of US Olympic Sailing takes very seriously. Joe is correct that as of only a few years ago there was no formal development program as part of the US Olympic effort. We are now in our fifth year of this program, and we have made some adjustments each year in an effort to get the program where we want it and need it to be. Joe brings up some important questions, the most fundamental of which is “can a sailor pursue Olympic and college goals at the same time?” We think the answer is yes, but it requires collaboration among the college coach, the Olympic program and the athlete. Some athletes will make college sailing their priority, and that’s great. Other athletes will make Olympic sailing their priority, and that’s also a great choice. It’s really up to the athlete to decide what their own goals are, and then it’s up to the Olympic program and the college coach to help facilitate those goals. Some college programs are clearly willing to help interested athletes pursue both sets of goals, and we’ve partnered with several of them. It’s not always easy, but with good communication and collaboration we usually get to a great place for everyone. One point we feel strongly about, however, is that if a sailor wants to achieve college goals AND Olympic goals, then the wrong way to pursue their Olympic goals is to put them completely on hold for four years. That may help them with their college goals, but ignoring Olympic sailing for that length of time will put the sailor years and years behind their international peers. The best model, we think, is to find a college program where the coach is open to parallel goals, and then create an annual plan that allows for both college sailing and some Olympic sailing. It likely means that neither set of goals gets 100% of the sailor’s attention, but from an Olympic perspective, we would rather have a talented athlete at least partially focused on Olympic sailing for four years, so that when they graduate and focus exclusively on the Games, they are at least part way up the learning curve and not starting from square one. But ultimately, the path needs to start with what the sailor wants, and what he or she (and their family) thinks is best. Good coaches (college and Olympic) will then collaborate in the best interest of the athlete. College sailing and Olympic sailing require different skill sets, as Joe correctly points out. And if the athlete wants both, then both sets of skills need to be developed in a parallel fashion. Will it be easy? No way. But if it were everyone would be a national champion, an All-American and an Olympic medalist.