Hi,

We have a boy in year 5 who has aspergers. He is the type that is very chatty! and is in your face alot. At the moment he is using the excuse that he isnt feeling well to get out of doing something he doesnt want to do, especially PE and were not sure how to deal with this.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to motivate him more to do some of the lessons he is less keen on?

Thanks

some reading here

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Is he worse with indoor PE? It could be avoidance of a situation that he is uncomfortable with rather than just a dislike. The 3 Aspergers children I have worked with have had an issue with PE indoors. None of them could take the noise and 'busyness' of it, they actuallly got very stressed.

I have an agreement to do alternative 'exercise' with them in a small group (2-4) and I have no problems.

My son told me that he hated PE. Wasn't solved until crazy patterned curtains in the hall were removed - and 'demonstrating routines' at the end of the lesson did not mean that he needed to touch anyone else or be touched by them. He thought that PE meant that children would be touching him, whatever the activity. Also PE t-shirt still had a label in it (oops!)
PE in the hall? Bare feet on a dusty/gritty floor? How much does your hall echo?
Same space that you use for assembly; but with different rules attached to it for PE lessons?
What does the child think about the lessons? - 'dance is just for girls'?
Motivation? Does he think there is a reason for him to learn those things he doesn't like?
It must be very stressful having a school day packed with things you don't want to do! How often does he get to do what he does like?
Does he lose his 1-1 support during the activities which make him feel bad?
Have you asked his parents for suggestions? They've hopefully got a good feel for when he is making excuses or is truly feeling unwell because of the stress of coping.
Hope my random thoughts help!

Wow, thanks both of you for your help, especially filscat, thanks alot, that has given me alot of food for thought, i hadnt thought about some of those issues he may have!

Good advice filscat

As a rule of thumb always check out 'sensory and work from there

Lots of kids hate PE . They can't cope with the erratic rushing about and one of my ASD pupils said he didn't know what to do.I explained that the other children didn't know what they would be doing either and he was very surprised by this news.If he is communicative encourage him to talk about the things he doesn't like and see if you can rectify some of them.They often hate getting change in front of others too. I eventually had a past pupil going to PE by just taking him in for very short sessions which lengthen over a two year period until he eventually actually enjoyed it.