How could an intellectual disability affect your kid’s ability to be active?
Being a parent to a child living with an intellectual disability is challenging and the struggle can be very real at times. It is extremely difficult to know where to go from the very start of your journey together and as there is no roadmap or specific path for you to follow, it’s up to you to learn and choose what you and your child want to do.
It can feel like a full-time job advocating and finding help along the way but first and foremost is your love for your child, their happiness and their health.
In our experience in the world of medicine and health, professionals are often caught up in labelling a child. If they do not follow the general outline of how a child should grow and develop, they are given a label and the child’s issues and symptoms are often pushed back or go unnoticed.
A parent just wants them to be happy and healthy…
Participation in a healthy and active environment is often the most important and usually overlooked factor when it comes to a child’s physical and social development. Access to the right services to provide this environment was (and in many cases, still is) extremely difficult to find. This is where Exercise Physiology comes into the picture.
Creating scientifically based programs for the healthy development of children is one of our skill sets and we’d be lying if we said it wasn’t just as fun for us as the kids we see. Being able to control the environment whilst still engaging, and inevitably tiring them out, is the proven way to help children gain strength, balance, coordination, flexibility, etc. As well as putting them in a situation where they learn to listen and follow instructions.
Access to sporting teams is also a challenge but as time goes on, more and more people are starting to realise the importance of the psycho-social implications of not having these opportunities available. Teams and sports specifically designed for people with a disability are becoming more plentiful and perhaps are the perfect outlet for your child.
Why is exercise important for developing kids with an intellectual disability?
So many parents would ask why? Why is it so important for my child to physically develop in a (scientifically) “normal” progression? Well, that’s just it. It is a progression. Some things come before others and if not, will affect their coordination, control and movement thereafter. This then leads into posture defects, muscular deficiencies and cardiovascular abnormalities (among other things) and unfortunately can then lead to to chronic muscular and osteo conditions, along with heart issues.
The main importance of exercise is that it helps to identify if a child is or isn’t physically progressing normally and if there are any areas that need specific attention to right their current trajectory. One on one sessions with a health and movement professional, such as an Exercise Physiologist, will help to pick up on any issues in a safe, fun, and active environment.
What types of exercise are good for kids and cognitive development?
We could go through each piece of training methods that would positively affect a child and why but it really comes down to a few things;
- Identifying which developmental milestones that have and have not been reached
- Determine what age children will commonly hit these milestones
- Then work backwards until you hit the root issues and work on this until it reaches an adequate level. An example is a child that has difficulty walking sequentially would regress to crawling or 4-point kneeling. Or a child with standing balance issues would regress to seated posture or kneeling posture (usually through a process of elimination)
- After learning the base skills, reintroducing them into more complex tasks
- But most of all allow the child to enjoy themselves and take home positive experiences that they would like to emulate at home.
How do you get your kids more active using your NDIS package?
First things first, you should become familiar with your child’s NDIS plan. It’s great to have a plan coordinator and they could very well be doing some great work but it’s always a good idea to know where the money is.
If you are wanting to take a step back from this and rely on your plan coordinator use them as a resource to find out more information about the services out there that can keep your child active, healthy and burn off some of that excess energy (if they don’t know, then maybe tell them to have a look around for you).
Have a look under the Improved Daily Living or the Health and Well Being areas of their plan and hopefully they will have some funding in these areas. If they don’t, that very well could be an important topic to bring to your plan manager or NDIS representative!
We’re always here to answer any questions so don’t hesitate to call us on 0422 572 164, message us directly via Facebook messenger or email us at hello@bephysiology.com.au. Or get to know the team better here: https://bephysiology.com.au/team/
