By DANG U. KOE, ASP Chair Emeritus
MANILA, Philippines — For families of teens with autism, joining a regular sports clinic will be quite difficult.
AUTISM ASKALS doing their warm up exercise
But with sheer determination of a group of mothers, coaches and friends, plus the desire of the teens with autism for sports, ASP Diliman Chapter ventured into successful basketball and swimming programs last year.
This year, ASP Diliman Chapter opened its first soccer clinic for children with autism, in partnership with University of the Philippines Special Education Council (UPSEC).
The coaches, headed by Jerome Tabayoyong, are all members of the UP Men’s Football Team: Jojon A. Jacinto, Keith Israel M. Mordeno, and Francis John C. Liza. The soccer clinic was a 10-day, two-hour session held at the UP Sunken Garden.
“Through our previous experience with swimming and basketball, we found out that exposing them to different sports activities foster rapport and help them strengthen friendships. This year, we thought of trying soccer,” said this week’s Angel Talker, Jo Palomares.
Jo Palomares is mother of Macky, 10 years old, with autism. Aside from owning and personally managing a thriving model airplane export business in Bulacan, Jo actively serves as the chapter president of ASP Diliman — one of the most active QC Chapters of ASP.
“It wasn’t hard to coin the name “ASP Diliman ASKALS,” said Jo.
“Askal” (which means street dog in Filipino) is a derivative of the Philippine Azkals, the Philippine national football team, who are now starting to make huge waves in the world football community.
Below is her interview with coaches and mothers of the students with autism who participated in the soccer clinic program.
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Coaches, how did the idea of the soccer clinic come to mind?
ASP Diliman Chapter president Jo Palomares coordinated with Mimi Avellana, current president of the UPSEC.
We were contacted due to our experience as special education teachers in Childfind (an assessment and therapy center for special children), and as football coaches in Claret, UP Diliman Bachelor of Elementary Education and UP Men’s Football Team Alumni.
How did you maintain the student’s attention and focus?
Teens with autism are often faced with difficulty in playing team sports due to their social impairment. Our students were teens with autism Vincent Benoza, Drix Dacanay, Andrei Gaban, Paul Goze, Alred Eslabra, Bodick Quentela, Rupert Valera, Macky and Josh Palomares, Paolo Orejola and Lorenzo Berkley. We managed to build rapport through constant communication with them and maintained a friendly environment by making soccer activities fun.
Since most of our students with autism have short attention spans, we tried to maintain snappy coaching methods. We provide football activities in various sets. Simple lang po, maging guro, coach, kaibigan at kapatid ka sa bawat bata.
AUTISM ASKALS, inspired by, what else, but the Philippine National Football Team
How did you tie up sports with their need for social skills?
Soccer is a social sport, players have to call each others name, analyze when to pass, receive and score a goal.
The students were subjected to daily routines. They were reminded to say “good morning” and “goodbye” to their coaches, teammates and to each other. They also engaged in turn-taking activities. They also prayed together as a team.
The chapter also organized picnics, so the students together with their parents, had social activities. They also learned to share meals and eat nutritious healthy recovery meals.
What are the challenging things you encountered in coaching the kids?
We found out another challenge that shortens their focus is the irritating effect of the sun’s heat. When the sun was too hot, we played under the shaded areas at the Sunken Garden.
We also implemented constant water breaks every 10 to15 minutes over post exercise schedules.
Another challenging experience was the lack of available playing areas and equipment. We are grateful that Coach Bob Salvacion lent us the soccer balls, cones, markers and ball nets.
He is our Claret School coach and he is a former UP Maroons football head coach. He's the one that mentored our football knowledge and character from elementary to college. He's well known in the field of football.
We also learned that to get PWA's attention, one really has to motivate them through positive reinforcements, in forms of praises such as “Good job!”, “Very good”, “Well done” and group claps as well.