Cognitive, Linguistic, Motor, and Social Gains

The premise of Extreme Sports Camp and its focus on sustained physical activity is that motor planning proficiency, from a neurological standpoint, provides the underpinnings for a host of complex and extremely important functions.

Many of us are aware of the effects of motor planning ability on gross and fine motor skill development such as those used in activities of daily living (sitting, raising oneself from sitting, standing, weight shifting, balancing, walking, feeding, using utensils and appliances, and grooming) and, to a higher level, graphic motor or writing skills. However, few people recognize the impact of poor motor planning skills on an individual's linguistic and cognitive skills.

Research has shown that the same basic "planning" or organization which underlies self help skills also underlies linguistic and cognitive sequencing and access to organized ideas, thoughts and problem solving functions. Highly motivating physical activities, which are based on activating and developing automatic experiences of successful sequences of movements -such as those used when skiing, hiking, swimming and the like - provide unique opportunities for the experience of healthy motor planning.

Quality and intensity of intervention is typically more important than quantity, especially for neurological "imprinting" of patterns and skills. Gains attained through these unique experiences of healthy motor planning patterns have the potential to generalize across many other areas of skill acquisition.

We believe that children gain immediate access to increased focus and the ability to attend to a task, and also experience reduction in anxiety and distractibility (from both external and internal stimuli), after participating in these centering and all encompassing types of skill based physical activities. Through these experiences they learn how to access external stimuli for use in decision-making. Increased language production, related-language content and improved processing skills have been noted after participating in swimming, hiking, skiing and other goal-oriented motor tasks.

Capitalizing on these opportunities, expansion of communicative and social interaction is encouraged and facilitated by camp staff. Staff is trained to elicit frequent social communication exchanges, whether verbal, picture- or computer-based. Camper-to-camper and camper-to-buddy exchanges are both promoted.

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Recreational Sports as a Lifelong Activity

Personal Growth

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