UKC

Since this article is entirely about climbing for children with autism, I'd suggest changing the title or at least the link text here.

There's still a serious lack of awareness that autistic children grow up and turn into autistic adults, and don't vanish in a puff of smoke when we turn 18; titling something "Climbing and Autism" then having it be it entirely about autistic children unintentionally perpetuates that.

A great point made by slab_happy.

For another perspective, although not rock climbing, there's a BBC documentary on air now (My Autistic Big Brother and Me) that explores how time spent in the mountains helps Spencer, a 47 year old with ASD.

Interesting viewing so far.

You have a point, but in fairness they did do an article about a young adult with Asperger's recently, and the article this thread relates to is well written and will be useful for some people with children. So, as a whole, UKC seem to have the right approach on the subject.

Is this not another one of those "climbing cures all ills" articles that emerge every now and again?

Usually written by a self appointed xx in climbing expert instructor, the articles lay claim to the wonders of climbing in treating difficult to diagnose and difficult to measure success ailments. 

I am sure we have already seen climbing cures depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, crohns is ease and there will be others I have missed.

As ukc users age, will we see an article on treating altzeimers with climbing, or will we forget to write it. 

Some sufferers of an ailment will find some benefit from physical activity. 

The snake oil salesmen are moving on, they have discovered it is easier to use climbing as the snake oil. No expensive bottling required. 

Now could someone please write an article on climbing and the cold/flu as I am laid up and grumpy and would love to go climbing and be cured. 

I didn't see any claims of cures, just giving kids with autism the chance to experience things that they will enjoy and help them integrate better into society. Do you have some sort of problem with that?

What I see is, "kind attention benefits kids", whether that kind attention is of a general kind or specific to climbing (or autism) is not demonstrated.

To quote from the article :

"Often, children with ASDs can find communicating with others and social integration with their peers difficult. Not only this, but having a disability can often lead to a perceived difference, affecting self-confidence and potentially creating a sense of exclusion. At a young age, sport, exercise and physical play with others is less accessible to autistic children because they find it harder to relate to other people and others often find it hard to relate to them. Without being able to easily participate in physical activity, they can struggle to enjoy the rewards of being active and a member of a sporting community, something most of us take for granted"

It does go on then to explain a little about how climbing fits into this, although it is a short article, so you can't expect too much detail. I agree that climbing does provide a good environment for people with ASDs, more so than most other activities, perhaps a bit more detail in that regard would have been useful. 

Completely agree.  The article makes no claims to be curing all ills or any unnecessary scientific claims.

What the article does is repeat what most of us already know - that climbing is a great activity that gets you outdoors, exercising, using the brain, challenging yourself and interacting with people.  Correct me if I am wrong but I think this is why most people climb.  None of this needs to be proven scientifically as most of us intimately know the benefits.  I am sure many of these benefits come from other activities but we have all been drawn to climbing.  However, many of these other activities do not appeal to me (and I suspect many others) so climbing meets my needs in a way other activities cannot.

I suspect the same is the case for these children (and similarly adults with ASDs).  Climbing provides a whole range of benefits for them in a fun and different way.  In fact I suspect climbing is well suited to people with ASDs as it is so immersive that you forget about everything else and is also inherently social but in a controlled way (it is not a team sport/involves lots of people that might be intimidating).  This does not need scientific proof, the evidence will be obvious from interacting with the people.

Perhaps Presley Whippet should get off their couch and do some climbing - might make them less miserable and be able to relate to people a bit better.

Yes, I generally appreciate UKC's approach, which is why I thought they might be prepared to rethink and change the title here.

Agreed, very much.

On the other hand, it does make me twitchy when any activity for autistic children or adults has to be framed as "therapy". 

Climbing is an activity that can be accessible and enjoyable for autistic children in a way that a lot of school "sports" and "PE" really, really aren't. This is awesome and I'm all for making it available to more autistic kids.

But when neurotypical kids play football (and may or may not get benefits from it to do with physical activity and teamwork and confidence or whatever), we don't call it "therapy" for them.

I see your point, but it's not quite 'entirely' - "Asperger's and Climbing: A Girl's Story" in the middle covers adults too, as - to some extent - do the last couple of paragraphs. Still, maybe a different title would be better

I think we'd worked that out from your first 6 paragraphs

But that's a link to a different article (from 2015).

If the article was titled something like "Climbing for Children with Autism", I'd have no objections (since that's what it's actually about).

'a link to a different article', very good point. And I like your new title

I've heard climbing is a cure to negativity

An intructor at my local wall wrote a nice related piece, warning contains 'feels'.

https://highballclimbingnorwich.com/climbing-with-theo/