Martial Arts Training for Special Needs Kids

Physical activity is an important ingredient to ensure the healthy development of your kids.  Martial Arts Training is one of the best ways to give your child an all-around great workout that will benefit him or her in so many ways including better physical fitness, greater levels of confidence, emotional stability and better focus for school. In fact there have been numerous examples to prove this.  Further, one fact you may not be aware of is that martial arts classes are particularly helpful for special needs kids for these same reasons.

Ms. Charlotte, owner of D’Souza Martial Arts Academy in Waterloo has been teaching Taekowndo classes for kids and adults for more than 10 years and during this time, she has also instructed special needs kids with different physical and developmental challenges.  The performance improvements that Ms. Charlotte witnessed while teaching these kids was impressive.

So, parents of special needs kids can count on their children realizing the same benefits that so many other children have at D’Souza Martial Arts Academy including improved physical, mental and emotional performance in an environment that is supportive of all students.

In particular, children on the autism spectrum do very well in martial arts classes due to the repetitive nature of this type of training.   It gives these kids a great outlet for focusing their attention.  During classes, students learn to perform taegeuks (or patterns of movements), different types of kicks, punches and blocks, which requires repeating them over and over again to learn how to execute them properly.

A study of 30 school aged children was conducted over a 14 week period in which kids on the autism spectrum were taught katas (Karate’s version of Taekwondo taegeuk’s) and there was a significant decrease in autism behaviours exhibited by those children both during the study and after the study was completed.  You can read more about the study here.

So, if you’re looking for martial arts training for your special needs child, please contact us at 519-725-5550 or drop by D’Souza Martial Arts in Waterloo.