OT and Yoga

When I see another great article about yoga for children that have special needs I always like to share what I have read. It also supports current research about how how all children benefit from a yoga practice.

Please enjoy:



by Sari Ockner, OTR/L

Occupational therapists help children with special needs build the underlying skills necessary to promote their success and independence in daily activities. This includes building their physical strength and endurance, while regulating their activity level, behavior, and emotions. Additionally, occupational therapy facilitates and feeds each child’s creativity and imagination.

Now lets talk yoga:
If you are a yoga enthusiast, such as myself, you can likely already imagine all the benefits of incorporating yoga into a child’s life. I have recently been trained and certified by Shana Meyerson, owner of mini yogis®, to teach yoga to children. I have started to incorporate yoga activities within my typical OT sessions, and WOW, not only do the children love it but I clearly see progress in each child with a few simple additions to what we were already doing.

Physical Benefits
Yoga promotes physical strength & muscular endurance, encouraging children to use all of their muscles. It helps to build balance, coordination, flexibility, and body awareness. Almost every position or asana incorporates the use of the core muscles, which ultimately promotes better posture. Yoga also teaches a child how to feel their breath and how the breathing physically impacts their bodies.

Motor Planning
Yoga positions incorporate using the body in different ways and across all planes of movement. Repetition, an important key in building new motor skills, is incorporated to help children master new movements. An important part of praxis or motor planning is coming up with novel ideas. Yoga encourages ideation skills and imagination, as children assist in picking different asanas and stringing together different sequences.

Emotional
Yoga can help to build a child’s self esteem, as no positions or ideas can be “wrong”. Unlike many physical activities, there is no winning or losing when practicing yoga. It is fun and playful!

Behavioral
So many of our children with special needs have difficulty regulating their arousal level, which leads to hyperactive and perceived aggressive behaviors. Yoga incorporates teaching breathing techniques and poses that require stillness. Yoga teaches a child to become more self aware of how their mind and body are connected and what it feels like to be still and calm.

Social
Yoga teaches individuals to be thankful, present, and kind to others. When building sequences children take turns and can build upon the ideas of others.

There are a variety of ways to work with children and incorporate yoga. Yoga with kids, especially younger ones, does not look like an adult class. It is all about incorporating a variety of fun tools to entice a child to be an active participant. Such components may include toys, games, songs, story books, or an obstacle course.

A session may start with sitting in a cross legged position and working on breathing, what a fabulous time to bring out whistles or bubbles to give that child sensory feedback on how their breath works! Maybe creating a sequence on how a tree grows (leading up to a one-legged tree asana) or how a super hero flies around the world to save his friends from trouble (flying on stomach with legs and arms raised high). A child’s yoga practice in this context is not “acting out” the actions but using yoga poses in a sequence to tell the story. Lastly, often the best part, shavasana. A time for stillness & teaching children an appreciation for quiet time, a skill necessary in school during teaching instruction or when going out in the community to places like a movie theater.

As the school year begins and parents are deciding which after school activities are best for their child, yoga is a fantastic option. Its fun, creative, and active!

Footnote: Shana Meyerson founded mini yogis® yoga for kids in March 2002. A pioneer in the children’s yoga community, Shana has taught teachers all over the world how to teach children in a fun, safe, and mindful way. Her intuitive and integrative approach to teaching allows her to positively change the lives of both typically developing and special needs children. Trained in classical yoga by one of the world’s most renowned yogis, Sri Dharma Mittra, Shana considers her teaching an offering to the sweet innocence of children and the lives that lay ahead of them. You can find out more about Shana’s mini yogis program and sign up for her yoga tip of the week by visiting http://www.miniyogis.com. Featured Contributor: Sari Ockner, OTR/L and Kidz Occupational TherapySari received her degree in Occupational Therapy at from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1998, in their extended Occupational Therapy program with an emphasis in her fieldwork studies in the scope of pediatrics.

Adaptive Yoga for Children with Special Needs

Wonderful Article by Donna Freeman



Adaptive yoga for children with special needs is a fabulous resource for parents, aides, teachers, physical therapists, OTs and more. Yoga is available to everyone and is easy to adapt to meet individual needs and requirements. It is a powerful form of physical and mental self exploration with tremendous benefits.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you develop and engage in yoga classes for those with special needs such as autism, ADHD, cerebral palsy, FASD, Down syndrome and more.

• Focus on Fun: Approach yoga with a sense or curiosity and play. It's fun to move your body, see what you can do, explore the world. The benefits of yoga are profound but children will lose interest if its not fun and joyful.
• Engage with child friendly themes: Build yoga sessions around topics that interest children. Maybe its superheros or princesses, the jungle or a trip to The Pet Store. Yoga can also be used to reinforce classroom themes and provide a kineasthetic learning modality. This allows children to improve their health while increasing their understanding of the themselves and their world. See Dinosaur Yoga, Shape Yoga and Bug Yoga.
• Provide challenges & repetition: Challenges are important to help children grow & push themselves. For many children with special needs standing on one foot (Tree Pose, Dancer Pose) is challenging. However as they practice this skill (repeating often) they become better at it until soon they have no problem. This works for all skills including relaxation and breathing exercises. The first time you may only be able to engage the students for a few moments. However, as you persist, repeating often, the children will gain valuable physical, emotional and mental skills.
• Encourage with positive feedback: Focus on what the children are doing right and reinforce it . i.e.: "I love your downdog."You're really good at sitting quietly and listening.? Wow, you're great at balancing on one foot."What wonderful yogis you all are."Thank you for your happy participation in class today.With children its so important to focus on the good and not worry too much about what is incorrect form, as long as it is not hurting themselves or others.
• Teach breathing & relaxation: In our hectic world it is vital to know how to calm, center and soothe. Yoga is a valuable mind-body tool which will help alleviate anxiety and stress.
• Keep yoga sessions short & ability appropriate: For many children their attention span maxes out at 5 minutes, often less for younger ones and those with special needs. This means lots of different activities to engage interest. Yoga is ideal because there are so many poses, each one an activity in and of itself. Keeping little ones engaged for 20-30 minutes is possible but you do have to be creative, energetic and focus on fun.
• Use and visuals: Visuals, such as flash cards, stuffed animals, books, plastic figurines, etc., help students stay on task, provide visual support, and kids love the opportunity to pick from the bag/card deck to see what pose is coming next. They also provide opportunity for turn taking and reinforcement of appropriate social behavior.

About Donna Freeman

Donna Freeman is a teacher, author, and expert on yoga for kids and teens. Located in St Albert, Alberta, Canada, she's been teaching yoga to kids and teens in school and home settings since 2002. Donna is also the founder of Yoga in My School, an excellent resource for everything about kids yoga.

Below is a book list that is a good start for parents to read and educate themselves about yoga and its benefits for children with special needs. 

Resource Guide

Books 

Yoga For the Special Child by Sonia Sumar (Special Yoga 

Publications, 1998)

Yoga Calm for Children, Educating Heart, Mind and 

Body by Lynea Gillen and Jim Gillen (Three Pebble 

Press, 2007)

Yoga For Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder 

by Dion Betts and Stacey Betts (Jessica Kingsley 

Publishers, 2006)  

Integrated Yoga, Yoga with a Sensory Integrative Approach 

by Nicole Cuomo (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007)

Hatha Yoga Illustrated by Martin Kirk, Brooke Boon, 

and Diniel DiTuro (Human Kinetics, 2006)

Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew by 

Ellen Nothohm (Future Horizons, 2005)

The Out-of -Sync Child by Carol Stock Kranowitz (The 

Berkley Publishing Group, 1998)

Your Child's First Class

Before I meet with you and your child, I will send you a parent/guardian questionnaire to be filled out before we met for the first time. The questionnaire will give me an idea of who your child is, their diagnosis and current therapies they are using and medications he/she is on. Our first in home meeting with be about 60 minutes long and will include going over the questionnaire and an assessment of your child's strengths and the goals you would like to see for him or her.


My years of teaching yoga to children at risk and with special needs have taken me across Ontario and throughout Canada. I have been fortunate to teach in some of the best community agencies in Canada that offer unique and caring programs for children. For example: YMCA of Canada, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, Girls Inc, Children's Aid Societies, Calgary Board of Education, Limestone and Upper Canada School Board and wonderful community programs that focus on children's education and developmental needs throughout larger cities in Ontario.


Close to my heart is working with children with developmental delays as my son has a severe seizure disorder and autism. I have had the fortunate experience of teaching yoga programs in a private school for five years with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and other learning differences. Yoga is a wonderful tool to teach all children especially children with special needs and developmental concerns.The classic definition of yoga is to “still the fluctuations of the mind.” For adults, quieting the mind is often difficult. For children, especially those with special needs, there may be a multitude of challenges that prevent such quieting. When this process is not smooth, disruptive behavior, an inability to focus and poor quality of engagement can result. Physical challenges and cognitive impairments can further complicate this process. With comprehensive yoga practice, children benefit by learning how to quiet their minds and calm their bodies; this results in improved physical health and sense of self. For children with extra challenges the benefits are extraordinary. Yoga for children with special needs is based on the methodology created by Sonia Sumar and Louise Goldberg. It is designed to help children who have ADD/ADHD, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, neurological disorders and learning disabilities. Yoga sessions are based on the Hatha Yoga tradition, which begins by working on the structural systems of the body, alignment, flexibility, and strengthening bones, muscles, and tendons. Internal organs benefit at the same time as they are toned and rejuvenated through the movement and poses of the yoga practice. Eye exercises, sound therapy and breath work, combined with regular yoga poses, affect all the systems of the body. Circulatory, respiratory, digestive, endocrine, neurological, nervous, cardiovascular, lymphatic and pulmonary systems are stimulated and toned, benefiting and balancing the internal body and mind with the external body.


For children that struggle with self regulation or sensory processing disorders, yoga tones and stimulates the nervous system, often breaking the “fight or flight” mode, stimulating the parasympathetic system and reorganizing the child’s nervous system. Regular yoga practice, as an adjunct to other interventions, is an effective therapy that meets the child where he is. The focus is on the child’s abilities, not his disabilities.


Children are assisted with accepting their limitations, using that as a starting base. From that point, the practice significantly enhances the child’s physical, mental and emotional state in a safe, peaceful and gentle manner. A child’s yoga practice differs from an adult’s practice in that it may include play, noise and lots of movement! A typical children’s class can include breathing exercises, movement and music for eye and hand coordination, and traditional poses such as cobra pose, child pose, and downward dog pose, each adapted to meet the child’s needs and capabilities.


A child with special needs benefits from an assessment prior to participation in a yoga class to determine appropriate class placement. The benefits of yoga for children with special needs include improved physical health, attention, and focus; however the greatest benefit frequently observed is improved self awareness and the increased self confidence that comes from being able to control their own body.

Yoga-tism

yoga for children with special needs

was designed to meet the challenges of those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including individuals with Sensory Integration Disorder, Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy and other significant developmental 
and global delays.

yoga the best fit for your child?

Treatments for ASD and developmental/global delays come in all shapes and sizes, and as families well know, what works for one child doesn’t necessarily work for another. Choosing a therapy must be based on the child’s specific needs and the family’s emotional and fiscal comfort. An increasingly popular choice—is yoga. It doesn’t require expensive medications or time-consuming doctor’s visits. Each child begins with an assessment and then yoga individual instruction. He or she is guided through repetitive movements, physical postures, guided relaxation and added slowly, breathing exercises. The yoga that is used is gentle and safe. No special equipment is needed beyond cushions and a mat. 

consulting

assessment

yoga as therapy

support