Since this is Healthy Heart month. The purpose of the adapted section this month will be to provide suggestions to enhance cardiovascular fitness through the fun activities of dance and gymnastics. Dance and Gymnastics are activities that have the potential to not only enhance cardiovascular fitness but also flexibility, muscular strength and muscular endurance.

The dance section will focus on teaching dance to students with ambulatory disabilities. This section illustrates that with minor modifications, teachers can integrate students with ambulatory disabilities and make dance meaningful and challenging for their entire class.

The gymnastics section will introduce a variety of instructional techniques that teachers can use to accommodate students with a variety abilities in educational gymnastics.

Since each student is unique it is vital to understand their individual strengths and challenges before implementing any of the strategies for dance and gymnastics listed on this site.

First, do your homework so that you understand each child's disability. You can go to the library, access the worldwide web, or read the student's medical and educational files. Second, meet the child's parents. Most likely they will know more about what their child can achieve than anyone else. If needed, request support from the parents and/or the special education resource teacher. Third, develop an I.E.P. (Individualized Education Program) specifically for gymnastics or dance by looking at the student's skill level and setting achievable goals while noting appropriate supports such as adaptive equipment.

Brent Hardin
Adapted Section Editor

Once you have a clear understanding of each student's individual abilities, look at modifying your present dance unit. While some specific examples will be provided in this section, it is important that you focus on the particular needs of your individual students when making modifications. The goal is to allow all students, including students with ambulatory disabilities, the opportunity to participate in a dance unit that is enjoyable, safe and physically challenging.

Dance Progressions

A simple yet effective way of introducing the concept of dance in an integrated manner is to start with hand dances, move to creative dance, and finish with partner dancing. This progression allows students to transition from simple dances that may be recognizable to them to more complex dances that they are likely less familiar with. Many students will have engaged in hand games such as Peas, Porridge, Pot, Macarena, or simple clapping and snapping. Hand dancing is merely a natural extension to these hand movement games. Once the students are comfortable working together and moving in time to the music, they are ready for more complex dances like creative dance and partner dancing. These dances build upon the initial teaching that involves movement, teamwork, expression, camaraderie, and fun.

Hand Dancing

Hand dancing is a matter of taking the "hand jive" we all know and love from "Grease" and using it in the classroom (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, run out and rent Grease!). Have students sit in a circle and give them a few basic hand movements. For example, you can start with a clap, clap, slap, slap; students clap twice in front of their chest and then slap their thighs twice with both hands and repeat. Then you can add more elements, building upon what is already known. Thus you can have a whole series of movements that just involve upper body movement. You can either call out changes in movement or call out a student's name and that person will initiate a new movement.

There are a myriad of other dances emphasizing upper body movements that will facilitate integration. For example, the "Macarena", a popular dance during the mid-1990s, is a good choice. Other choices that rely heavily on hand movements and may be conducive for children with ambulatory disabilities are the "hand jive" and the "clap rhythm" (Harris, Pittman & Waller, 1999).

When the class finishes a hand dance, have them take their heart rate. Challenge the students to create and participate in other hand dances that allow them to increase their heart rate to enhance cardiovascular fitness.

Creative Dance

Creative dance is dance can be used to express mood and emotion (Joyce, 1994). Using music that captures some type of feeling is the first part of creative dance. Once you have found music that suits the mood you want students to create, give students instructions on what components you would like to see incorporated in their dance. After your instructions, students can move around the room making different body shapes while expressing with their arms, legs, faces, and heads the emotions they are attempting to capture.

Since creative dance can be somewhat awkward feeling, it is a good idea to start students doing this individually before moving them into small groups. In addition, because students can get caught up in doing one movement, it is helpful to be clear about exactly what types of movement you expect.

Just as you did in hand dancing, ask the students to take their heart rate following creative dancing and challenge the student to create creative dances that enhance cardiovascular fitness.

All students should be able to enjoy the fitness enhancing aspects of dance and integrating children with ambulatory disabilities in a dance unit can be achieved with relative simplicity. Reasonable modifications will often allow students of all ability levels the opportunity they deserve to participate in typical dance units. By adhering to basic integration principles (Block, 1994) and using the above progression as a guide, you can integrate students with ambulatory disabilities and make dance meaningful and challenging for your entire class.

References

Block, M.E. (1994). A teacher's guide to including students with disabilities in regular physical education. Baltimore: Brookes.

Enya. (2001). Wild Child. Hollywood: Warner Brothers Records.

Harris, J., Pittman, A., & Waller, M. (1999) Dance awhile: Handbook of folk, square, contra, & social dance. 8th edition. New York: Macmillan.

Holst, G. (1998). The Planets. New York: Polygram Music.

Joyce, M. (1994). First Steps in Teaching Creative Dance to Children. 3rd edition. Mountain View: Mayfield.

The teaching environment can make a big difference in how well students with disabilities progress in educational gymnastics. The first step when making any environmental change is to consider the special needs of individual students (Treanor, 1993).

Simple changes to the gymnastics setting can produce a more accommodating environment for students of varying ability levels. For example, extra padding can be placed in the areas where students with balance problems are practicing traveling actions, to cushion any falls. Brightly colored tape or cones can be used to mark boundaries for students with mental retardation or students with visual impairments. Be sure to avoid setting up equipment until the equipment is about to be used, because balls and cones set up in the environment for a later activity might be extremely distracting for a student with mental retardation or attention deficit disorder.

Peer Tutors

Peer tutors can work with students with disabilities to provide the extra attention and feedback that these students need in order to learn successfully in educational gymnastics. Using peer tutors can enable you to divide your attention more equally among the students.

Although all students can teach each other, you should carefully select the peer tutors who will work with your disabled students. Not all students will be ready or able to work in a one-on-one relationship with special students. Ellery (1995) recommends that peer tutors should be (a) slightly older than their disabled counterparts, (b) emotionally mature, (c) good communicators, (d) highly skilled, and (e) volunteers.

Peer tutors may need ongoing training to become skillful helpers, so set aside between 5 -10 minutes sometime before class to make sure that tutors understand their responsibilities for the lesson. Also, do not be afraid to let competent students with physical disabilities tutor non-disabled students. For example, a student with spina bifida who is confined to a wheelchair is very capable of providing instruction, encouragement and feedback on another student's gymnastics sequence. This type of arrangement gives everyone in the class the same peer tutor status.

Routines and Rituals

Students with disabilities may need alternative demonstrations and signals to excel in educational gymnastics. You can provide a demonstration that is appropriate for the majority of the class and serve the special needs student with simple alterations.

For students with mental retardation, for example, you might need to highlight key aspects of the demonstration that other students might be able to easily grasp. This could be accomplished by using a peer tutor to repeat the demonstration several times.

Another example of a simple modification would be to bring a student with a severe visual impairment to the front of the class to assist in demonstrations with physical assistance. While giving demonstration to the class on a proper forward roll, you could help demonstrate with a student who has a visual impairment by placing the student's hands and feet in the proper position on the mat. With this simple modification, you could provide a demonstration to the class while meeting this student's individual needs.

Finding the best way to give starting and stopping signals to special needs students is also important. Some students with disabilities may need physical assistance to stop traveling actions, and others may need hand signals. The teacher can use one cue for the entire class and still provide hand signals or physical assistance to the students who need extra cues. For example, you could use a cowbell to start and stop a traveling warm up for your class. When the students hear the bell, they know how to locate the students with a hearing impairment and visually signal them to stop.

Students with special needs may sometimes have difficulty performing educational gymnastics activities at a level that will enhance cardiovascular fitness. Minor modifications however will often allow these students the opportunity they deserve to participate in challenging inclusive gymnastics activities safely and with more success.

References

Block, ME (1994). A teachers guide to including students with disabilities in regular physical education. Baltimore: Brookes.

Elery, P.J. (1995). Peer Tutors Work. Strategies, 5, 12-14.

Sherrill, C. (1998). Adapted physical activity, recreation, and sport: Crossdisiplinary and life span (5th ed.). Madison, W.C. Brown & Benchmark.

Treanor, L.J. (1993). Making Student Comfortable with Gymnastics. Strategies, 9, 5-8.