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Posted By Mary Grunmeier on January 22, 2001 at 12:50:13:
I am a Level 2 Certified Ski Instructor working with a teen-aged girl who is autistic. I have the skills and experience for teaching skiing, and she has really come such a long way, but we have come upon a real challenge.
Her father reports that she loves to go skiing, and although she doesn't talk to me, she does respond to both verbal and physical encouragement, such as "Good Job!" a High-Five, and a big "thumbs up." Her father skis with us. When I first met her, she skied between her father and me. All three of us would hold on to a bamboo pole, and we skied her. This wasn't my idea and was problematic in many ways. First of all, she's almost my size, and while it is easy to control a small child this way, it is much harder with a larger person. Second, the idea was to give her the idea of how the fee/skis/snow interact so she could reproduce it on her own, but she was leaning so hard on the pole that often her skis weren't even in contact with the snow.
She now skis from the top of our beginners' hill (which is really way too steep for beginners) without falling and can stop and turn. We are looking for a way to get her to turn on command. "Chase Dad!" works to a degree. However, once she catches him, she just goes by him. (She likes to go fast.) I've been successful in skiing in front of her, holding up a colored coffee can lid, and I call out "Red, Hit it!" and throw it in the snow. Then, "Yellow! Hit it!" and throw it in the snow, and so on and so forth. She'll ski over 6 or 7 of them this way, but then takes off. I had an idea that she could ski around our orange cones--small, lightweight, slide away if you hit them by counting them. The plan was that I would go first, counting each turn as she made it, in back of me. This plan is just not going anywhere.
The primary goal is for her to use the turns to control her speed, so that she and her father can ski at the top of the mountain. The secondary goal is for her to recognize the need to turn around racing gates (poles) so she can get into the Special Olympics program in her state.
I would really appreciate any thoughts or ideas you might have. Thank you so much.
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