“La Educación Física como favorecedora de salud”

There have been relatively few previous studies that have combined the fields of PE and SEBD, and as such very little attention has been paid to the use of some form of education through physical means as acting as a behavioural intervention for those with SEBD. It has been recorded how the child with SEBD often reacts positively to alternatives to classroom based theory lessons. A curriculum, which concentrates on practical, physical, and creative experiences, would often be more effective in meeting the needs of pupils with SEBD (Cole and Visser, 1998). On this theme, Hunter-Carsch (2006) comments how

41 „the arts permit transcendence of our routine particular roles…….for some youngsters (and perhaps particularly those with SEBD) it can be easier to work with different, perhaps more accessible forms of „reading‟ and „literacy‟ such as can be offered through the arts.‟

(Hunter-Carsch, 2006, p.48).

The same can be said for learning in a physical context through PE. Activities, which are physical in nature, can potentially induce many positive educational and behavioural outcomes. The reported research that follows in this review has attempted to bridge the boundaries between that learned through physical education, and potential behavioural improvements, which may be seen as a consequence. As is discussed below, these papers often have one of two limiting factors. Studies attempting to measure the relationship between physical movements, and externalising behaviours, without consultation with the children and young people themselves, are often either largely removed from the school-based PE environment, or they have employed methods that negate many of the possible mechanisms from which changes may well have taken place, as explained in the following illustrations.

Luce, Delquadri and Hall (1980) provide the first of these examples of such limiting research practices, with their attempt at suppressing excessive frequencies of verbal outbursts and aggressive tendencies through „contingent exercise‟ as a punishment for children described as being severely emotionally disturbed. A series of physical tasks centred on repeatedly standing up and sitting down on the floor ten times. These punishments were required of two 7 and 10 year old boys, if they engaged in inappropriate behaviours. The authors concluded that their results demonstrated how contingent exercise was an effective reprimand procedure, which replicated movements the participants might engage in during their times of play. They thus proposed that physical activities could be used as punishment, to suppress future behaviours. To think of learning through the physical as castigation for challenging actions, greatly ignores the potential outcomes of its place in their education, aside from any demonstration of undesirable behaviours.

42 The same can be said for the case study by Etscheidt and Ayllon (1987). When working with a thirteen year old child diagnosed as having hyperactivity and distractibility problems, they intervened by way of five minutes of prescribed exercises with a „therapist‟. If the child had behaved badly in the morning, then exercise was „prescribed‟ in place of his time in the playground. It was also discussed how, if he had worked well in the morning, then his energy levels are obviously „about right‟, so there was no need for him to work off energy and he could go to the playground. The potential for the benefits of this exercise coming through his playground time was not discussed, nor were the social benefits of such an option.

Evans, Evans, Schmid and Pennypacker (1985) researched the potential therapeutic benefits of a physical activity intervention and found it to be of great use to behaviourally disordered children. Their methods again neglected to consider the socially facilitative nature of physical activity in that each of the subjects exercised alone so that social facilitation was not able to inadvertently „contaminate‟ the effects that were shown. The restrictive experimental procedures employed account for the study failing to appreciate the additional benefits, or possible weaknesses, which could have been found had they employed a method with greater ecological validity.

It is worth recognising that the date(s) of the studies discussed thus far demonstrates some of the historical developments of research in this field. Historically, the methods employed in these previous studies have most often been their restricting factor. The apparent limitations of adopting an experimental research design, which neglects to pay due regard for the richness of educational environments, has reduced their subsequent applicability to the child, pedagogy, and policy. The reliance on intervention studies of positivist design is not practical for implementation or replication in an educational setting, where such levels of manipulation are not afforded. Other research papers since, such as those to follow, have been more specific in their sampling, akin to the much publicised burgeoning nature of the clinical referral

43 of many behavioural difficulties. However, many of their methods have retained a gross lack of participatory voice.

Through working with a child diagnosed with ADHD, Silverstein and Allison (1994) researched the effectiveness of both „antecedent‟ exercise and Methylphenidate (Ritalin) in the reduction of externalised hyperactive behaviours. Their study, of a single three year old boy, found exercise to result in more hyperactive behaviours, in comparison with a chemical stimulant of the central nervous system. Methodologically, such results remain unsurprising given the extraordinarily young age of the child, and the requirement for this child to jog for 20 minutes. It is highly predictable that the participants‟ behaviours might change in a very different way to those evident after prescription of a stimulant prescription. Silverstein and Allison (1994) described how the child disliked the repetitiveness of the exercise and often tried to escape the treatment. This may of course have contributed to the observed behaviours, although the authors offer no explanation as to why they continued with the disliked intervention.

Tantillo, Kesick, Hynd and Dishman (2002) followed in a similar vein: working with eight to twelve year old children using „sub maximal‟ exercise on exercise treadmills as their intervention. They were concerned with measuring the children on numerous physiological scales (such as the rate of spontaneous eye blinks). Sporadic and inconsistent results showed only limited support for these claims, primarily because there was a lack of uniformity between the findings achieved for boys and girls. Their findings suggested that exercise has some efficacy in treating ADHD behaviours. Notwithstanding these findings, they indicated how the „methods (they) used do not permit the conclusion‟ that exercise has an effect (p.210). Any attempt to deduce which of many variables is responsible for the observed (minimal) physiological changes would entail the discussion of a causal relationship, which will always be difficult to establish. Tantillo et al. (2002) have attempted to control experimental variables by grounding their study in clinical environment. In having done so, they have

44 overlooked variables and mechanisms that may have an effect within a school setting.

Each of these studies has merit in their own right, as pieces of research that contribute to the case for curricula that meet the needs of children and young people who have behavioural difficulties. However, their unifying lack of ecological validity removes the conclusions that they make from being practical to the child‟s educational setting. The conclusions drawn actually bear little relevance to the schooling or experiences of the participants. By removing the contextual relevance of a classroom environment, Cooper (2006) contends that many of these interventions neglect to appreciate that it may be this, (the environment), which creates the difficulty in the first place. More so, what each of those above, have not considered is, as previously argued, the importance of participatory student voice. By engaging in behavioural interventions without regard for consultation with their „subjects‟, the authors have effectively negated to offer any opportunity for social validation of their methods or outcomes.