Brief Report: Coaching Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder in a School-Based Multi-Sport Program.
School coaches can grow social skills in teens with autism by using short rules, quick praise, and partner games in multi-sport PE.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Rosso (2016) watched high-school coaches run the Supporting Success multi-sport program.
The team asked: what coaching moves help teens with autism talk and play together?
They sat in on practices, talked with coaches, and wrote down what worked.
What they found
Coaches who gave short, clear rules and praised small wins saw kids talk more.
Side-by-side sports like doubles badminton let teens chat without eye contact.
No grades, no trophies—just fun—kept everyone coming back.
How this fits with other research
Pitchford et al. (2019) got the same social boost using only golf, showing one sport can be enough.
Howells et al. (2020) tried community football with younger kids and saw fewer behavior problems, but no social-skill jump—age and sport type may matter.
Jachyra et al. (2021) asked teens why they skip sports; bullying and rigid rules topped the list. Supporting Success dodged both by letting kids pick teams and rotate games.
Why it matters
You can lift social skills without a clinic room. Ask PE teachers to add short stations, clear praise, and low-pressure partner games. Let students choose roles like scorekeeper or captain so every learner has a way in. Start with one friendly sport, then swap in new ones as confidence grows.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Tell the PE teacher to run a 5-minute partner rally in badminton and praise the first three conversational turns you hear.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
While physical activity (PA) is often overwhelming for people with ASD, appropriate engagement strategies can result in increased motivation to participate and associated physical and psychosocial benefits. In this framework, the multi-sport Supporting Success program aims to inform good-practice coaching strategies for community coaches to engage with adolescents with ASD in order to foster socialisation. The project employs a community development approach and a Participatory Action Research (PAR) design. Methods include ongoing consultation, focus groups, briefing/debriefing sessions and questionnaire surveys. Preliminary findings indicate that coaching strategies and program design are fundamental variables in the use of sport/PA to help adolescents with ASD to develop social skills and share positive experiences with peers, coaches, educators and local community members.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2016 · doi:10.1007/s10803-016-2759-8