Heavy Work Activities for your Child with Autism - Plexus Neuro and Stem Cell Research Centre

Heavy work activities for your child with autism

Read on to know more about heavy work activities and why they must be a part of your child’s routine.

Understanding Autism

Autism or Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a range of neurodevelopmental disorders that affect social, behavioural, and communicative abilities. Its symptoms manifest when the child is between one and three years of age. Children with autism often have trouble regulating their senses and controlling their emotions when confronted with uncomfortable situations.

How do heavy work activities benefit children with autism?

Heavy work activities, also known as body awareness activities, include anything that involves pushing or pulling against the body. It could involve activities like swimming or running, where resistance is against the flow of water or air, or movements like swinging and hanging, on playground equipment like monkey bars. The aim of heavy work activities is to activate and engage as many muscle groups as possible.

While most of these activities seem easy-peasy for neurotypical children, children with autism may very well find them to be challenging and even intimidating. Many liken these activities to stepping out of their comfort zone, something which is met with a lot of resistance and trepidation.

Heavy work activities help improve muscle tone and strength, coordination, gait, perception, and even help deal with sensory processing issues. In particular, children who seek what is known as proprioceptive input, may need those activities to calm them. In the absence of structured heavy work activities, the child may seek that input in dangerous ways, such as jumping off ledges or crashing into things.

Your child’s occupational therapist (OT) will incorporate various safe, heavy work activities to assist your child with senses that they may be seeking or avoiding – understanding this need may be difficult for a child on the spectrum, and so it is your feedback and the observations made by the OT that will determine the further courses. Regularly engaging in these activities helps increase your child’s body awareness, or proprioception, by helping them assess exactly how much physical effort they need to complete tasks like shutting a door or writing with a pencil. This input helps the child know their spatial orientation, i.e. where their body is in space and what it should be doing. This ability to understand, calculate, and decide on whether or not they want to perform the heavy work activities or any other activity for that matter develops when the child is given a lot of opportunities to explore and freedom to decide for themselves.

Home-based heavy work activities

There are several simple ways in which you can incorporate heavy work activities into your child’s home routine. Essentially, they have to involve movement and resistance so as to engage the child’s muscles. Most of them are daily chores and ordinary play activities, although you can choose to enroll your child in structured sports too. These activities are ideal if your child is overstimulated in a new environment or is upset for some reason.

Your occupational therapist will help you identify which senses your child needs help regulating, and recommend corresponding activities to provide the best sensory input. Examples include:

• Taking out the trash
• Pushing the shopping cart at the supermarket
• Playing with modelling clay
• Blowing bubbles
• Riding a tricycle or bicycle
• Rearranging books on shelves
• Mopping the floor
• Swinging on monkey bars
• Playing catch with a ball
• Jumping on a trampoline
• Marching or running in place
• Shoveling snow or raking leaves
• Calisthenics routines like jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups, and so on (particularly for older children)
• Stretching resistance bands

Overcome sensory overload with heavy work activities

Dealing with sensory processing issues can be challenging for your child, but heavy work activities can provide them with the sensory input they need to calm them down. The best part is that most heavy work activities are daily tasks and games that your child can start with right away.

Things to keep in mind

• Be sure to monitor your child through all these activities so that they stay safe and do not hurt themselves
• Try and decide on a set of activities that your child can perform at any time, ​​so that you can be prepared in advance if they experience a sensory overload in a public place
• Observe your child and modify the routine in case they are overstimulated by any of these activities

At Plexus, we offer the best treatment for Autism. With holistic treatment plans that offer your child opportunities to build and enhance socio-communication skills, physical strength (gross and fine motor skills), concentration, and other necessary life-skills to lead a well-rounded and fruitful life.

Our team of experienced physiotherapists and occupational therapists will draw up an exercise plan that covers a series of physical activities that include heavy work activities along with structured and free play. These activities will be devised to suit your child’s present and future needs, and can help them have a calmer, happier day.

Treatment for autism also comprises stem cell therapy, sensory integration (SI) therapy, activities for daily learning (ADL) training, social skills training, speech therapy, behaviour retaining therapy, cognitive behaviour therapy, play therapy, and more.

Book an appointment with us today.

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