Researchers help kids with disabilities learn to ride bikes
June 21st, 2008
From the Detroit Free Press:
A team led by University of Michigan kinesiology professor Dale Ulrich is working with the charity Lose the Training Wheels to help teach kids with Down syndrome or autism in Ann Arbor how to ride bikes without training wheels.
At the same time, Ulrich is conducting a research study to learn how successful bike riding may affect these kids’ emotions and independence. Other training sessions, minus the research component, are going on across the country this summer.
Just 10 percent of kids with Down Syndrome can ride a bike, and autistic children have similar issues, said Laura Bailey at the University of Michigan News Service. By Wednesday this week, a quarter of the kids were up on two normal wheels. By the end of the five-day program before this one, 62 percent of the kids were riding.
(Free Press, U-M News Service photo)
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July 23rd, 2009 at 3:25 am
this news make me so excited that children with down syndrome and autism can ride two wheller and it change them a lot by socially .i myself is a mother of two kids .my daughter is 12 and son with down syndrome is 7 .so i just try to teach him bycycle ride frist three ,four days he shows less interested to ply with cycle but now his father keep him teach and now he has concept how to ride and somehow he manage and play .so this is very good news for me .i also start down syndrome association of nepal.where i have lots of kids .from today i also try to teach for each children in my day care centre .thank you so much