Football as a sports program for children with ASD in elementary education

The difficulties that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience to perform physical and sports exercises is a reality. This situation causes a low participation in physical and sports activities with their peers. The difficulties they present regarding motor skills hinder their participation in physical activities in groups, also causing less socialization within the sports context itself (Kruger, et al., 2019). Therefore, it is necessary to propose programs oriented to physical and sports practice, encouraging the participation in physical activities and increasing the social relations (Wong et al., 2015). With the intention of promoting sports for this group, a sports training program was designed based on pre-sports football games. The sessions managed to enhance children's physical and social skills in order to attain a general improvement in both skills, and thus transfer their capabilities and learning to other sports contexts. The purpose of this type of sports schools is to promote and encourage physical and sport activities for this group of people with ASD, as well as to prepare all children to participate in any type of sport. Sometimes, the lack of information regarding disability can lead to a rejection of people with disabilities by those responsible of directing sport practices, with the wrong intention of protecting them (Gonzalez & Sosa, 2008). In order to measure the state of the art regarding sport leisure of children with ASD and the level of satisfaction reached under the sport training program, a questionnaire was distributed to the families of participants. The results obtained at the end of the research were positive, evidencing the need of promoting physical and sports activities as an alternative of leisure for people with ASD.