Skiing with Autism

A snowHead

Hi,

My son, who'll be 5 at the end of the 09/10 season, is on the Autistic spectrum (at the milder end of the spectrum). He loves snow and wants to go skiing.

Can anyone offer advice / experiences of how to go about teaching him how to ski (e.g. good resorts/ski schools, would Club PiouPiou be appropriate, etc..).

Thanks

A snowHead

Welcome to shs. Can't really help but I think a number of sh instructors are currently doing adaptive skiing courses and I think there are few shs with kids in the autistic spectrum who ski quite happily.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

wsirhc, you might want to give The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead a call and see if their ski school could help, it's not too far from you in Essex. An instructor would probably need to meet your son before they could offer any advice. A few lessons there might be a good introduction before you go on holiday.

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wsirhc,
You're already onto a winner, knowing that your son loves snow and wants to go skiing. Very Happy

It depends on how he behaves in new situations and with strangers and other children as to whether you could put him into regular ski school or not. If you were to try him in a group, then I'd definitely suggest that you tell the instructor how your son is likely to behave before the lesson begins.

One-on-one lessons with an adaptive instructor would be the best... Again, tell the instructor any quirks, behaviour and what (if anything) he finds especially interesting. Knowing stuff like this saves a lot of trial and error time and helps to make the lesson a lot more fun and relevant for your son. I've spent many happy hours skiing like Pingu, and, my favourite from last winter, was being that well known Superhero, Snowman!! wink

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wsirhc, The Snow Centre does have Adaptive Instructors, if / when you give them a call I suggest you ask them for a call back from an instructor called Ian Osborne, who I'm sure will be happy to have a chat with you.

As we speak I'm doing my Level 1 Adaptive Instructor course there.

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wsirhc, Hi Disability Snowsport UK are developing a ski school at Hemel. There is also a local group of adaptive skiers who meet at SnoZone Milton Keynes called ASMK who meet monthly if you want contact details please contact sophiewood@disabilitysnowsport.org.uk

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Hi! Can't think of a better place than Zell am See in Austria! We were there last year with our little Jamie, 6 years old, who has a mild autism. He was skiing with Anna from Skiing4all. She was so kind and Jamie absolutely adored her! She is not just an instructor but she runs it like a therapy (she is a psychologist from Cambridge). Zell am See was so beautiful, frozen lake for skating for our daughter and Kaprun glacier guarantees snow all year, even in July - though we went in November (cheap Ryanair flights from Stansted, great value hotels and absolutely no queues, no crowds- which was important for Jamie - I would recommend off-season)! We cried when we saw Jamie do his first green run, a great big smile across his face, something he rarely does. We will definetely return this year! You can read more on www.skiing4all.com (I can see it every day on Jamie's cap he's got from Anna, together with a diploma and a gold medal - he is so proud of it! Good luck and let us know how it went!

After all it is free

elisabeth, welcome to Snowheads, and thanks for the recommendation. Would be good to hear more about you and your son's experiences of learning to ski with autism.

Hello again! As I was double-checking whether Anna is still working in the same resort, I have come across this in the news section of www.wtss.co.uk it looks like Skiing4all is running a competition again this year, offering a ski break for a person with learning difficulty and their family. Good luck! If you have any questions, just drop me a line. I will be back on the forum to write more about Jamie's experience soon Happy

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My son James has profound autism. He learnt to ski in Spain and has now been skiing for the last ten years. He is not the quickest but is able to ski blacks. We got him 1 to 1 instruction for the mornings on his first week's holiday. In the afternoons we just reinforced what he'd been taught in the morning and lots of "James do this". Visual learning is the best way. He was soon up and away. He loves his skiing now and looks forward to it every year.

Bansko in Bulgaria I'd recommend. Great skiing, good instruction and it doesn't break the bank.

Good luck with it.

Ps. Contact Ski Club for the Diabled they were very helpful to us.

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Hi,

Thanks for all the advice and suggesions.

We didn't manage to get anything organised for this season, but have some places to start looking for next.

Thanks again,
Chris.

snow reports

With regards to you autistic son you should contact the dry ski slope at Bromley, as they have a group who coach / instruct skiers with special needs / learning dificulties. You could also contact Special Olympics GB. www.sogb.org.uk They offer many sports including skiing at various centres around the UK.

Hi,

Just to let you know that we booked our son on a course with www.skiing4all.com at Zell am See in Austria.

He thoughly enjoyed it, as did the rest of us, and I can thoughly recommend Anna and Skiing4All.

Anna was very helpful and Pete the instructor we had very, very good with our son.

We're already planning to go back next year.

Regards,
Chris

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

You can also contact nick at hemels snowcenter.

Nick is the lead instructor there he will be able to help you out if you send him a email on nicholas@disabilitysnowsport.org.uk

He will be able to let you know when lessons take place, He a great instructor i would deffenetly get in touch as i am sure he will be able to help you!

Laughing

A snowHead

Just wanted to add to the recommendation of skiing4all, zell am see. We spent Christmas 11/12 there and had a fab time. Our 5yr old son, with autism was looked after superbly. He was skiing on his own from the top of the mountain by the end of the week. Skiing4all also looked after his very outgoing sister, who was given fantastic instruction for the week. Basically, this meant that we, the parents got to ski for 5 hrs without kids!!! In our previous holiday, we found that arranging private lessons for our son and ski school for our daughter did not give us any time in the day to ski for ourselves.

A snowHead

Does anyone have any other experience of other providers in this area. Skiing4all are getting great reviews and it looks very good but I would like to compare their service against others

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Hi bladeski,

European Snowsports in Verbier have recently revamped their adaptive ski school 'ES Adaptive' which is now being run by one of our instructors Sam Colby.

Sam was exceedingly popular with our skiers when he was teaching and I would thoroughly recommend him. http://www.europeansnowsport.com/ski-school-verbier/es-adaptive/

You could also try www.ski2freedom.com which is a comprehensive list of adaptive skiing opportunities throughout Europe. Catherine is extremely helpful and will go out of her way to help you find the resources you are looking for www.ski2freedom.com.

Hope this helps!

Charlie

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Just for interest, I have an acquaintance whose son is autistic and they introduced him to the snow with great trepidation at Falls Creek. He took some time to get used to it but is now a fantastic skier. Their main problem after a while was that he was too daring in and needed to be reined-in constantly. It has been the best thing for this family as it was the first pursuit that they could all do as a family, parents ans siblings.
Good luck with your boy I hope it works out really well for him.

______________________________________
NeosizeXL

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Hi all just back from a truly excellent week with Skiing4all in Zell am See. Anna, Peter and Michael could not have done enough for our son. From the initial meeting on the Saturday night with pictures for him and explaning what they did, everything was spot on and fully setup to his enjoyment and safety. To see him complete blue runs and get on and off chair lifts by the end of the week was superb and far exceeded our expectations and he thoroughly enjoyed every minute of his time with them. We are already talking about going back.

I am usually a hard nut to crack when it comes to customer service and do not do testimonials - but these guys really do provide a great service. we did not use their accomodation as found Crystal could put us up in a 4* hotel and transport us for less including the surcharge.

Happy for a PM from anyone who wants more first hand detail.

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I've had ASS children in my teaching groups in the past. Normally without warning. Sometimes the parents 'hang around' to see how things will go. (I try to discourage this with all of the parents connected to my group.)
At the times they see their parents out on the slopes I do give the children max support and encouragement to have a little controlled 'showing off/demonstration' of what they have learned. (This normally works well and doesn't disrupt the rhythm of the lesson.)

I have two mild ASS children of my own (and work in education) so having ASS children(and often undiagnosed ASS parents) in the group doesn't create a big problem for me, but I can imagine that for some (read young) instructors, it may come as a bit of a shock.
My experience is that ASS children are normally fairly inflexible without the correct motivation(and for every child this will be different) and as an instructor you must stay focused on their needs. Often without it being obvious to the rest of the group.

Also some parents (and I'm not looking to offend anyone here, please!) are sometimes unaware what their own children can be capable of when given the opportunity. This can be positive results and/or negative consequences. e.g. Too daring. (Again, I'm not looking to stir up a storm!)

My own son enjoys skiing, but hates all the messing around connected to it. e.g. tight boots, damp snow in gloves, waiting at lifts, sitting next to strangers, wind, baggy trousers, sweating, eating strange food, using strange toilets, musty smells in the appartment and the list goes on...
His motor coordination is not always always optimal and he can get tired quickly too.
My daughter has hardly skied, has had hardly any instruction, but already skis very well. Her drawback is that she hates it rolling eyes

Oh dear!

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

I work in a specialist residential school and have worked with both AS Teens and those younger, and on the more challenging end of the spectrum. I agree with the above poster regarding Inflexible thinking and I think the main thing would be to find someone to teach an ASD child who has patience, understanding and ideally some understanding of learning disability or ASD. I have never experienced skiing with someone on the spectrum but I can imagine from a sensory processing perspective it could be quite challenging with the crowds, brightness, frequent changes in environment etc. however, it would obviously totally depend on the individual and I think the repetitiveness of morning routine, ski school, same slopes etc could be fantastic for some and enable them to achieve amazing things. Good luck OP, whatever you do in the future I'm sure your son will have the most amazing time

Hi my daughter who has cerebral palsy skis in a disability ski group. There are a couple of kids as either end of the spectrum who seem to get a great deal out of the skiing. U think patience and understanding on the part of the instructors is key

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I have a 6 year old on the spectrum and he was first put on skis at 2 years old and loved it from the start. He was only diagnosed last summer, so all of his ski lessons have been "mainstream" with no real issues except that he has followed the group in a world of his own most of the time. He can often be heard singing away happily to himself as they zoom along. We usually go to France, and he's been in PiouPiou a couple of times and is in Flocon now. He adores it, has no fear at all, and even though he hasn't paid the slightest heed to what the instructors have been saying he is now really comfortable on skis with fantastic balance. Only on skis though, he can't cycle a bike or ride a scooter at all! He generally ignores the other kids completely, but he will interact with the instructor.

Now that we know about the ASD I can see how much more progress he could make with specialized instruction. I've been looking at Skiing4All and I'm delighted to see such good reviews. We'll definitely check it out next season.

His gloves have to be put on before his jacket, otherwise he sucks them and pulls them off. Having them underneath means its much harder for him to get them off. Discovering that made a big difference.

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The Lass is a ski instructor in Verbier and worked as a teaching assistant at a specialist school in the UK for very, very Autistic children. These kids are at the very far end of the scale.

There is an Adaptive instructor in Verbier who works for/with European Snowsports (not the school that The Lass works for).

She was recognised up the mountain by one of her former pupils from the UK who was skiing in a 1:1 environment with that instructor.
The pupil wanted her to join in, so she did for a while.

If that pupil can ski with his profound Autism, I would venture to say that almost any "normally" Autistc child can......and obviously I use the word "normally" with lots of caveats!

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Pending, we have just got back from our 2nd week with Skiing4all and have very little doubt we will book for 2015 in the coming months. again service was fantastic. even to the point they took Junior B to hospital as he fell over and banged his knee and was complaining but couldn't be overly precise. JB had a fantastic time peter was his instructor again and as soon as we met up with him and Anna he was ordering Peter around. what is great is you get a disk of pictures at the end so you see how far they ski and what a good time they all have. Happy to PM if you want to ask specific questions.

dan100, Do you go to Pembray on the first Sunday of the month as we go occassionally?

My son, has recently been diagnosed with high functioning ASD, and I've been reading this thread a few times over the last few months. I'd love him to ski with me, my wife and daughter, but it might be too soon. I just had a few days on snow last year with Mountain Sun and went to the Canary Islands last Easter instead of a family ski holiday....and I hated that!

Anyway, I chose to call DSUK who got my son an hours lesson with James at Hemel Saturday 18th. All seemed to be going really well, until he got some snow in his gloves. Even though I borrowed another dry set of gloves, he seems to focus on this very small (to neuro typical people!!) issue. Apart from this he seemed to be getting on really well, and James and I saw no reason why he wouldn't be able to ski.

If you were to ask him how is skiing went, he would tell you he got snow in his gloves. In the same way, when riding his push bike his pedal once (once!) hit his shin, and he NEVER wants to ride it again, even though the rest of the time he seems to enjoy it.

Maybe once I've got him another set of gloves we can have another go. I think he may benefit from being in a group so he can have more fun and join with the other kids. Perhaps that isn't fair in the instructor.

Plenty to think about, but I was really impressed with DSUK. Even better that as it was his first time, he got some funding so it was only £30 for an hour.

You know it makes sense.

@dave_m, My son has Aspergers, high functioning ASD, OCD and rigidity. He loves a sport involving strict rules, hates football etc... we first took him skiing when he was 3, in Italy. He wasn't at all bothered about playing with the other children but absolutely loved skiing and took to it like a duck to water. He struggled to get used to wearing a helmet until we gave the helmet a name (Mr Helmet-head).. and if you asked him about skiing, it was all about what Mr Helmet-head did. At the end of week party, he sat glued to me all night, with his hands over his ears (sensory issues, he hated the loud noise from the DJ).. and refused to get his medal... but, 12 years on he still loves skiing, can snowboard equally well and still hates football. One thing I would say is that at age 15, my son now has 'grown into' his Aspergers and handles it remarkably well. He is very geeky at school, highly intelligent and loves maths and sciences... he's a remarkable, lovely lad and I just wanted to give you a bit of hope for the future. It really is worth pursuing the skiing. My son's school allow us to take him out during term time as it has helped his confidence; he is tasked to hand in a project about the resorts we go to and give a whole year assembly when he gets back too. Which, for him is a remarkable achievement as he hates writing and standing up in front of people; but get him talking about skiing and you wouldn't have a clue that he is any different to any of his peer group.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

oh yeah, I cried when I first saw him on a button lift, unaided. He looked tiny compared to everyone but his smile was the biggest on the mountain.

A snowHead

@Fruity, what a great story to share. I have a lodger who is high functioning autistic - his parents were keen for him to become more "independent" and he has rented my studio, where he has his own place, his own privacy. I worry that he spends so much time alone but his mum assures me is his fine and my concern is "neuro typical". He's a great guy to have living there - very quiet, and doesn't have noisy mates in!!!

A snowHead

@Fruity, thanks for taking the time to write, it's really helpful to hear other experiences.......much better than, "oh all kids do that".

I won't tell a lie, I had water I my eye watching his first runs at Hemel.

I will book another lesson in the morning and buy some more gloves....maybe 2 sets!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Try mitts too... Ben got on with mitts better when he was little. He didn't like the way his fingers don't touch in gloves. He won't wear a scarf, so he has a tube. We are fully expecting him to go to university by the way, like I mentioned he handles his Aspie side really well. Still says it like it is, can be very blunt but his mates totally get him now, he's really popular because he knows everything about anything on xbox rolling eyes

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Blade ski dipped out if the forum for a long term but yes regularly at pembrey skiing with my daughter sophie with a sit ski. Since I lasted posted on their thread Sophie has been diagnosed with autism not a surprise to us - but took 5 years from when first raised with nhs rolling eyes

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

For anyone who hasn't been watching it, the latest programme in the BBC Scotland series called the The Mountain (which is about Aviemore and the surrounding area) had a nice sequence where the 7 year old autistic son of the piper had a successful introduction to skiing lesson. His watching parents had tears in their eyes watching their son's progress. Smile

. The father was so keen to build on this that he decided to have learn to ski lessons himself so that he could in future ski with his autistic son!

You can watch the episode on iplayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b051wblq/the-mountain-episode-5, the sequence with the autistic lad starts about 9:30 into the programme.

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I'm delighted to see all the updates since I was last on this thread! @Fruity, thanks so much, that's wonderful to hear and great encouragement for us all.

My lad is 7 now, and from being in ESF Flocon this time last year he now has his 3rd star Happy

Skiing is the only thing he can do in terms of sport. Can't/won't ride a bike or scooter, can't swim despite years of lessons, can't catch or kick a ball, can't run fast, but somehow when we put him on skis he's a natural. He's just joined the mini racers at the local dry slope and is loving it. It's fantastic for his confidence and the school are very supportive, so we are off again next week to Cervinia.

@dave_m, we use Mountainsun too, and while we were there at Xmas we skied with a couple of fantastic instructors at TDC who really understand ASD despite not actively targeting autistic clients. Best of all they could structure a shared private lesson so I got to work on technical stuff, while my son had a blast bombing around after the instructor, doing little jumps and mastering mogul fields. We might be back there at Easter, but not booked yet. If not, then definitely next year. It might be nice to link up and go at the same time, what do you think?

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@dave_m, Wrist gaiters might be an idea worth checking out, can't remember where I saw them but easy enough to attack an old coats sleeves with some elastic to try out in the snow dome.

After all it is free

a plug for our good friends at http://snowbility.co.uk who are based at Hemel snow dome check them out...

Interesting thread - a lot of home truths and hard-learnt lessons here. My sister has Aspbergers, and skied quite happily when she was younger; unfortunately she struggles now to get into the boots due to weight issues, but at least that problem is within her control.
To those of you with youngsters who 'OCD' on things (wet gloves etc).... yep, you'll just have to deal with it - what we learnt was to have a 'stock' of things of interest with which we could distract - amazing how soon wet fingers are forgotten if there's a game to play/chocolate biscuit or similar. Although the ability to recall events from the past means that -ve events get undue focus.
We also found that 'dry' ski slopes were nearly as good, a lot cheaper, and (location dependent) almost convenient. In my sis' eyes, 'skiing' was 'skiing' - snow was not a necessary or even desirable part!
Interesting comments on the sports - my sis isn't at all co-ordinated, and doesn't 'do' ball-sports - but she's a pretty good swimmer, and loves being in the water generally. This was something that only developed late teens onwards (she's 40+ now). If you extrapolate the 'slow emotional learning', it's not unreasonable to suppose that a 'cold wet' sport is going to take a while to get your head around.... [but then I can't rationalise football - what _is_ the point?]. Patience, gentle encouragement, and a thick skin - easy to say, a challenge to develop, but worth it in the end.
The real challenge is finding a sport/challenge that the individual responds to - my sis has been through phases from steam trains to horses to VW Beetles to trampolining.... it's been quite a journey.
pax, h.

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@hamilton, We have lots of pairs of gloves. I ski with a rucksack. It contains spares of gloves, mitts, hand warmers for the colder days... we soon learnt that it was easier to be prepared in this way! We just returned from a (Cold but sunny) week in Norway, where we had an absolute blast and I think, at the last count he changed his gloves twice a day...

Help!!

Skiing with Autism

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