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The traditional approach in Adapted Physical Education(APE) explicitly works on a skill by modifying the movement or object (Block, 2016). Example: “The student will be able to kick a stationary ball.” Traditionally, you would have the student practice this skill repeatedly and test them when their IEP is due for evaluation. The mastery of repetition has been achieved, and possibly they can perform that given goal. The goal of object manipulation is not in question. These skills are valuable, but the approach to achieving these goals was questioned. A foundational approach to movement is necessary for Adapted Physical Education. Students in APE with cognitive disabilities or low muscle tone typically have difficulty performing gross motor skills because they have difficulty feeling themselves in their bodies. The implementation of heavy work allows them to “wake” up their muscles and improve joint response by doing activities that you would more commonly see in professional athletic training. The academic term for this sense is proprioception. Examples of this heavy work are medicine ball work, squats, speed ladders, weighted sprints, battle rope, bean bags, etc. Implementing heavy work in APE builds a strong foundation that allows the APE students to more efficiently achieve their goals and objectives, which will, in turn, allow for more to be met in the future. Students with disabilities often times have lower confidence. Physical activity is a great way to build self-confidence and this research also aimed to measure whether self-confidence increased over the duration of heavy work training.
With help from my APE mentor, I realized there were some major flaws in the way we were approaching Adapted Physical Education and felt there was a better way to meet each of their individual needs using an approach that hasn't been heavily implemented or researched. Apps
Google sheets was used to collect and organize all of my data. It made it very easy to compare pre and post-test data using charts.
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ASSESSMENT
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Google Forms was used to collect all of the survey content form both students and teachers. From there, data was transported to google sheets data analysis