Enabling the social inclusion of autistic children

Sports and recreational activities are rarely available for the 400,000 autistic children and youth, half of whom are girls, that are in Pakistan.

To fill the gap, Kafka Welfare Organization Pakistan, a non-profit organization, has started an initiative to develop adapted physical activities and sports for children with autism spectrum disorder. One of the programs started has been in collaboration with the Children Library Complex in Lahore, a public organization dedicated to the welfare of all children.

The project is designed to include weekly sports programs for children with autism, aiming to improve their social behaviour, motor skills, life skills and communication skills, through organized and objective-oriented sports activities. A group of coaches from the Physical Education and Sports Sciences department of GC University in Lahore were mobilized and taught inclusive coaching techniques.

Tailored coaching approaches

While working with autistic children, you need one coach for one to two children, so it takes a big team to engage with 10-20 children at a time. Some children take time to become familiar with their environment. However, since all of them have different special needs, it is important to consider this while planning and implementing activities.

In the program, we have witnessed children having fun in the activities; their parents were appreciative that a gap in their lives has been filled. Through observation and qualitative interviews, we also noted some improvement in their communication and motor skills and in their behaviour, during the first six months of our project.

The relationship between coaches and the children is significant – it takes a while to develop it, as children with autism are often very sensitive. A good understanding of children’s needs helps coaches to choose relevant and most needed activities for specific children.

Our coaches Ahtsham, Muzahir, Riffat, Bilawal, Hamza, Hammad, Salman, Zain, Fariq, and Moazam have done a tremendous job and we hope this program will continue to support the children’s development, using the social power of sports.

Impact

Through the implementation of the program activities, we have witnessed children doing fun and their parents were happy and satisfied as some gap was filled. We have observed some improvement in the communication, motor skills, and behavior of children during the first six months of our project through observation and qualitative interviews.