ASK Angie ASL – Exercising with Deaf Children

This month’s issue is about “getting moving”. When exercising with children who are deaf, or hard of hearing, some things should be taken into consideration. While it isn’t always the way, some deaf students may prefer to become involved in individual sports such as swimming, yoga, dance or martial arts. Balance may be an issue with some deaf children due to certain types of hearing loss and should be taken into consideration when choosing a sport. Gymnastics may be a good way to improve balance issues.

Some things to remember when exercising with children who are deaf are:

1. Keep it visual. These students need to have access to seeing the instructor at all times, allowing them to copy the movements of the instructor.
2. Some students may want to remove their hearing aids during strenuous activities due to excessive sweat getting into the battery case of the hearing aids. A solution could be the use of a hearing aid sock that covers the battery case and keeps it dry. Another solution is to place them into a “dry kit” after activities to get any moisture out. Both can be found at hearing aid stores or through Harris Communications.
3. And lastly, keep it fun and include the entire family if possible!

Here are some interesting sites to check out!

National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD) is positioned to effect change in health promotion/obesity management among people with disabilities through its existing 15-year history of providing advocacy, services and programs to numerous organizations and people throughout the country. www.nchpad.org

Yoga PAH! provides yoga classes, workshops, retreats and other events with and to those involved in the Deaf Communities: family, friends, hearing, Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HOH) www.yogapah.com

Angie Craft author and teacher brings over 26 years of experience in deaf education and is committed to serving the deaf community. Keenly aware of the isolation that deaf students often experience, Angie developed and wrote HandCraftEdASL to bridge the communication gap between deaf children who primarily use American Sign Language and their parents, peers or educators. www.handcraftedasl.com

Karate Image Courtesy of the National Center on Health, Physical Activity and Disability (NCHPAD) http://www.nchpad.org/

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This post originally appeared on our May/June 2014 Magazine