Social Deficits in Team Sports and PE: Help for Kids on the Autism Spectrum
Most kids participate in physical activity with their peers, both within and outside the school setting. Social skills play an essential role in peer interactions. Children with ASD or High-Functioning Autism (HFA) often have difficulty playing with peers, because they have difficulty handling reciprocal conversation, making eye contact, playing social games, sharing with others, taking turns, understanding social cues, and simply making friends. Even though kids on the autism spectrum desire social interaction with others, they have a hard time finding and keeping friends due to their social difficulties that frequently stem from a lack of skill in initiating and responding to various situations. Other areas of impairment that relate to social interactions in kids with HFA include: problems with social distance (i.e., knowledge of personal space) difficulty understanding unwritten rules, and when they do learn these rules, many apply them rigidly interpreting things lite