The Autism Fitness PAC Profile workshop will be coming to Norfolk, VA November 12, 2011. The full-day seminar provides attendees with the concepts and hands-on learning to create fun and effective fitness programs for the autism and special needs population. Fitness professionals, special educators, and therapists will learn about the methods behind The PAC Profile and how to incorporate exercise activities into any environment.

The Autism Fitness PAC Profile Workshop Comes to Norfolk, VA

On November 12, 2011 Autism Fitness Founder Eric Chessen, M.S., will bring the PAC Profile workshop to Meyer Fitness in Norfolk, VA. This full-day workshop will cover:

- The 3 most important aspects of Ability

- How to Assess fitness levels

- Understanding  how your clients “understand”

- Developing fitness progressions and regressions

- Individual and Group programming

- Motivation and reinforcement

This is a must-attend workshop if your clients include those with autism

For fitness professionals working with young populations, there is a high liklihood that you will eventually find yourself with a client on the spectrum or with a related disability. The PAC Profile Workshop will provide you with a foundation for success in fitness programming for children, adolescents, and young adults with autism.

Registration for the November 12, 2011 Norfolk VA Autism Fitness PAC Profile Workshop is open NOW

Register early and save $32 off the workshop price.

The goal of Autism Fitness is to bring outstanding fitness programming to each individual on the autism spectrum. Attending the PAC Profile Workshop will enable you to join us in that mission.

For registration info, visit http://www.autismfitness.com/autism-fitness-workshop-schedule/

Live Inspired,

-EC

I am now featured as an Autism Expert on Howtolearn.com

The Autism Expert page on www.HowtoLearn.com was just featured on About.com . HowtoLearn.com has quickly become the premier educational resource on the web. The easy-to-navigate site has a wide variety of experts in various fields of eductation. In addition to having me as the one of the  resident Autism experts, Howtolearn.com features some of the top specialists in many areas of education.

HowtoLearn.com is perhaps the BEST educational resource site on the web, and I am proud to be a part of their Autism Expert page, and there will soon be some great interactive additions to this area of the site. Take a look at the About.com story below:

http://finance.paidcontent.org/about/news/read?GUID=18497919

What do I provide as a HowtoLearn Autism Expert?

One of the great features of HowtoLearn is that each Expert can provide answers to your questions. As an Autism Expert with a focus on physical health, parents, educators, therapists, and fitness professionals have access to Autism Fitness methods and strategies for fitness programming.

More to Come from the Autism Expert section on HowtoLearn

In addition to the “Ask the experts” section of Howtolearn.com, there will soon be a series of webinars and other interactive information resources. Autism Fitness was also recently named one of the Top 101 Educational Websites featured on HowtoLean.com

Check out the Autism Expert page on www.HowtoLearn.com and be sure to look through their extensive resources.

www.AutismFitness.com

www.PACProfile.com

The new issue of Parenting Special Needs Magazine is available and features my recent article about Autism and Success.

http://parentingspecialneeds.org/currentissue

A few weeks ago I visited one of the schools here on the East Coast that has implemented the  PAC Profile as a physical education program for their students.

Many of the teachers embraced the program, as they finally had activities that worked for their students with autism. A few had questions about the programming; What to do if a student did not understand an activity, or what to do when they “mastered” or were now able to achieve the exercise independently.

For students with autism, it will most likely take many repetitions of the same movement or exercise for mastery to occur. Not only are there physical deficits to cover, but self-regulatory/behavioral, and cognitive obstacles as well.

It is important to include the 5 Big Movement Patterns in each physical fitness or PE session. They are (in no particular order):

- Bending/Squatting

- Pushing

- Pulling

- Rotation

- Locomotion

Here is where science meets art. Taking these movement patterns and having performed a PAC Assessment on a student enables you to come up with various activities and exercises that do the same thing…which is a good thing.

With squatting as an example, we have at least 3 activities in the PAC Assessment alone that represent variations of this movement pattern. Bodyweight squats, Bear walks, and Bend knees/arms up are all different activities that do essentially the same thing.

There is a gray area between getting in enough opportunities for an individual with autism to master a movement pattern and he/she becoming bored or over-exposed to a single exercise. By breaking activities into the 5 categories of movement and providing a few variations of each one with different equipment, you can develop a fitness program that is stimulating AND successful.

Live Inspired,

-EC

www.Autismfitness.com

My NEW Autism E-Book is Available Now!

I am excited to announce the release of my new E-book, Bike to the Future: A Parent’s Guide to Teaching Children with Autism to Ride with Success

Bike to the Future is the perfect starting point for any family that wants to teach an young person with ASD how to ride a bike. This new addition to the Autism Fitness E-book library covers topics including:

- How to assess the needs of each child

- Why learning styles may be different than you think

- What you can do TODAY for a lifetime of bike riding ability

- General fitness programs for physical fitness, strength, and endurance

This Autism E-Book was created with parents in mind

After speaking with many parents of young people with autism it was clear that Bike to the Future had to be written.   I wanted to take the frustration, trouble, and guesswork out of teaching bike riding to the autism population.  While many parents would love for their children to learn how to ride a bike, the challenges of autism often make teaching new skills difficult.  The Autism E-book Bike to the Future provides a blueprint for bike riding success.

No Other Autism E-book focuses on Learning to Ride a Bike

And certainly not using the strategies provided in Bike to the Future. The goal of the book was to make sure that parents would be able to teach bike riding successfully by limiting anxiety and stress, and focusing on building upon existing skills.

If you’ve tried teaching a child, adolescent, or teen with autism to ride a bike before, this E-book is for you. If you got started and then gave up in frustration, this E-book is for you. The strategies in the Bike to the Future Autism E-book are the same used to get some rather un-enthused Autism Fitness athletes to begin riding a bike with confidence and enjoying the experience! If you have a young person with autism and a bike (and want them to get together), this Autism E-book is for you.

Bike to the Future , the immediately downloadable Autism E-bookis available NOW at

www.autismfitness.com/autism-fitness-bike-to-the-future-e-book/