Aerial for Autism and Additional Needs

The aerial hammock offers a special environment for children with additional needs. Importantly, it’s highly adaptable - it’s rigged in a U shape which can be at hip height, be lowered almost to the floor, or anywhere in between depending on the height and ability of the user.

Moves and poses can be from sitting or lying on the floor, using the hammock to stretch and support the body. Other positions might be from standing, using the hammock to help balance and strengthen. And of course, the most fun part, actually being in the hammock! We might sit in it as if it were a swing in a park, sit sideways as if on a bike, or lie and be entirely enveloped in the fabric.

Aerial hammock brings together lots of elements providing a whole sensory experience and a multitude of benefits:

• Body awareness - feeling and moving the body in a difference space and orientation

• Motor planning - following visual and verbal instructions to position the body in a pose

• Attention and focus - listening, understanding and interpreting instructions

• Fitness - any aerial activity done regularly will help develop fitness, strength, flexibility and coordination

• Motor skills - gross motor skills is a given with anything aerial, but manipulating the hammock in your hands and fingers also gives the fine motor skills a workout too

• Vestibular input - rotating/moving/swinging with cues taken from the child as to what’s acceptable to them; some children love spinning round, others prefer feet on the ground!

• Proprioception and tactile input - lying in the hammock gives full body deep pressure

More information

For more detailed information, there are a few American website who offer aerial yoga as therapy and have interesting articles:

A Sensory Life, Yogapeutics

A Sensory Life, joint traction and compression

Sensational Development

Using aerial yoga for kids with ADHD, ASD and everything else