The Biggest Mover: Empowering Students with Intellectual and Developmental Delays and Physical Challenges

Abstract

The Biggest Mover Program, an educational program to improve daily exercise and healthy eating was developed to address the learning needs of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and physical challenges. The program was part of a three-part program to improve the knowledge of students, staff, and teachers through the use of multi-modal materials. Students were coached daily in self-monitoring and recording their choices. The 4-week pilot program content is easily modified to meet the needs of individual classrooms, supports the use of universal design for learning, and uses modifiable tracking materials for student self-monitoring. The program participants included staff and students in an inner-city public school who were enrolled in four middle and high school life-skills and transitional life-skills classrooms.

Acknowledgements

This program of health literacy would not have been possible without the support of the administration, willingness of students, and assistance of dedicated classroom teachers and staff from health and physical education, library science, and occupational, physical and speech therapy in the Worcester Public Schools. The author would like to thank her husband, Paul, for his support and the faculty in the doctoral program at A.T. Still University for their guidance during the development of this program and article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michelle J. Brown

Michelle J. Brown ([email protected]) recently retired as an occupational therapist in the Department of Occupational and Physical Therapy at Worcester Public Schools in Worcester, MA.