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Question for beanie1 Disabled - Physical/Mental

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
I was asked a question to which I don't know the official BASI answer.

For an Instructor qualified to L1 or L2 standard, are they allowed and covered by BASI insurance to instruct clients with special needs/disabilities?

The question specifically related to a school group lesson which included children with Aspergers Syndrome & Autism.

Having received no training with regard to this within their instructor courses, should they decline to take the lesson and refer them to Adaptive Instructors or DSUK or continue with the lesson and do the best they can?

I'd appreciate the thoughts of other instructors as well as the official BASI line. What they didn't want to do was take a lesson for which they were not qualified, especially if an injury occurred.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Not sure what the legal situation would be (although I'm guessing you would be within your alpine licence if you were teaching kids with special needs/disabilities to ski alpine). However, if the kids had particular special needs I would be tempted to say they would be much better served by someone with experience of adaptive teaching. When I did my L1 Adaptive it was a real eye-opener as to the many different aspects that you need to consider in addition to the regular teaching aspects, and even fresh out of my adaptive course I would have been anxious about taking responsibility for adaptive clients. in just that one week of training I picked up lots of tips about how best to teach disabled skiers, and without that kind of insight I think I would probably just flounder.

BTW, the idea of teaching a group where one or more of them had Aspergers or autism sounds a bit daunting. My guess is there's a good reason why all the DSUK lessons are privates...
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Spyderman, I recall something from last winter which was related to me by a friend, where the parent of a special needs child insisted they would be fine with group lessons. Instructor took them in the group , but insisted that he would assess the child on the first day for their suitability for the lessons with the rest of his siblings. The child wasn't comfortable in the class at all, and progress was very sloe. Parent was very unhappy about paying for private tuition, depsite being told this was a possibility. I'm sure the child had an autistic spectrum disorder of some sort. Instructor is a BASI trainer, so assume he was within his licence to teach them.
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Hells Bells wrote:
... and progress was very sloe.
Not enough gin, probably.

Sorry.
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rob@rar, Laughing Laughing New keyboard wink. Thank goodness I wasn't posting about my dinner.
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Hells Bells, Laughing
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At Gosling we adopt a similar approch to the BASI trainer above; subject to certain issues and we will always consult either DSUK or one of our Adaptive instructord; Certain mild conditions still present real risks such as spinal issues with Autism
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Spyderman, I will find out the official answer, but my feeling is that if they are skiing on standard alpine equipment you'd probably be fine, although as people have said above they'd be better served by a suitably experienced instructor.

Remember that BASI insurance kicks in if for some reason your ski school's insurance fails you (i.e they didn't take it out, went bust etc). So the first person to ask is your ski school director.
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Spyderman,
The insurance will only cover them for the education that the instructor has been assessed as having.
So if these clients with Autism or Aspergers need to be taught as individuals and not within a group, then they would not be appropriately educated and in turn qualified. The assessment as to whether or not the autistic/aspergers client would need to be taught separately would have to come from a qualified special needs teacher/instructor. It would be within the rights of the instructor to refuse to teach them if they felt that the safety of the rest of the group is likely to be jeopardised.
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beanie1, Thank you.
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I occasionally teach kids with Attention Deficit Disorder and Autism. Not sure about Aspergers Syndrome.

It's been OK, but then it's mostly been in a closed environment and the people concerned have been at the 'mild end of the spectrum'.

In an Alpine Environment I'd be much more circumspect especially if it's a group lesson. Group safety would be my main concern, but having a carer to accompany the lesson would help manage that.
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AndAnotherThing.. wrote:
Group safety would be my main concern, but having a carer to accompany the lesson would help manage that.

In a closed environment, does the carer need to be able to ski, or at least be able to ski to the level of the group to manage that?
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Asperger's is a mild form of autism and usually means that the sufferer is more than a bit OCD and probably behaves inappropriately in a social situation.

I've taught plenty of people with Asperger's Syndrome and you have to make your decision in an outdoor activities environment on a day to day AND individual basis. They are usually high-functioning, but cannot recognise the dangers peripheral to an environment where they are having fun. That goes for themselves as well as others.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
anarchicsaltire wrote:
AndAnotherThing.. wrote:
Group safety would be my main concern, but having a carer to accompany the lesson would help manage that.

In a closed environment, does the carer need to be able to ski, or at least be able to ski to the level of the group to manage that?


That would depend on the situation. On a short dry slope the ability for them to ski isn't that important as they are going to be pretty close anyway. In a dome that's going to be different, and in some situations a second Instructor would be appropriate. As ever with things Instructing related it's about trying to make good decisions based on sound judgment.

After doing the SSE Disabled awareness course, which focused much more on the physical, it became clear that a lot of situations need other Instructors to call on when needed.
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