children with special needs

overview our work with easter seals

since the fall of 2007, kim weeks and several of her trainees have worked with the easter seals society to provide yoga and breathwork to developmentally disabled children. the children’s issues include: premature birth, autism, cerebral palsy, down syndrome, herb’s palsy, cleft palate/lip, and other mental/physical disabilities.

please contact us for more information, or to provide funding for this essential program for children.

case-study excerpts and pictures

damani

this is damani, age three, born at 22 weeks. yoga has helped her digestion and breathing, she is able to self calm in a way that seemed impossible before, she has learned more trust in interacting with people, and she loves to stand on her head!

kim’s methodology at first was to help her contain a sensation of her own body through forward folds. this shape, especially child’s pose, has helped her experience the fetal position that she was only half-way through at the time her mother went into labor. the forward folds helped damani calm her nervous system and hear her own breath better. this, in turn, taught her to trust her own body’s movements better.

kayla

this is kayla, age five, who has been diagnosed with autism. kayla is the yoga super-star. as you can see from the pictures, she loves the more advanced physical poses, like wheel pose and lotus pose. originally diagnosed with hypotonia, kayla is flexible in every direction: back bends, forward bends, and twists.

like damani, kayla also loves standing on her head. she also loves standing on her hands (as with the wheel pose and handstand). kayla is learning strength, focus, and much more about her breath through yoga.

kayla is also able to take advantage of her proclivity to stick with mind patterns as she learns the sun salutes and other pose sequencing.

sofia

this is sofia, age five, who is a child with down syndrome. atypical as a downs child, sofia is strong willed and likes to lead yoga classes more than take them. she loves teaching kim how to do better cobra poses, as well as other backbends like camel pose!

kim has worked experimentally with sofia and kayla together. both children are working on improving their socialization skills, and through a weekly yoga practice, they are learning to work together — to do poses together, breathe together, and simply notice each other’s presence through yoga and help each other out. (kayla was proud of herself recently for helping take sofia’s shoes off, for example).

jason

this is jason, age three, with cerebral palsy. yoga helped jason become more upright: kim sat him on the top of a toy bus and he learned to propel himself forward and backward, through an increased use of his abdominals, thighs, and gluteus muscles.