Day 3 of raising awareness of players with special needs..yesterday we looked at physical, today we are looking at Cognitive. Children may have disabilities or special needs that are not as obvious or easy to detect. For example, a child who you think is not paying attention during practice may have a mild learning disability that affects his ability to process information. Perhaps you feel a child on your team is out of shape or lazy because she stops running after the first 10 minutes of practice. However, this child may have undetected exercise induced asthma. Regardless of ability, the interests of children with special needs are similar to those of all children. There is a strong desire to have fun, play, and make friends. Cognitive •Receptive language or the ability to understand may be better than expressive language. •The child may need more time to take in or process information such as verbal instructions. This may be due to the fact that the child is taking in too much information or stimuli around them at one time and has difficulty remaining focused. •May demonstrate inappropriate motor planning or the inability to initiate a movement and put the correct parts into a proper sequence. For example, the inability to take in information (i.e. coaches directions) and correctly organize the information in order to properly perform the skill. •Giving the child more than one direction at a time may pose difficulties, as in run 10 yards down the field, get in your position as a sweeper and tell the fullbacks to spread out. •The child may be a visual or tactile learner rather than an auditory learner. In this case, coaches should keep verbal instructions to a minimum and provide a demonstration or physically guidance. •Incidental learning is difficult. For example, the child acquires knowledge only through direct instruction. •May take information literally and believe you mean what you say. For example the coach needs to state to the child who is tired, Do you need to rest? rather than are you beat?
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 07:07:26 +0000
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