G4A - Gloves for Autism

The Gloves for Autism pilot project (hereinafter G4A) was born from the long experience of the Nuova Accademia Pugilistica (hereinafter, NAP) in working with marginalized kids in a difficult context, such as the Gargano area in the lagging region of Puglia (IT), together with the Ring Box Club (hereinafter, RBC) who is a long-time partner and has a significant expertise in the field in Hungary. By monitoring the needs presented by the local educational and sport systems, we developed the activities at the very core of the project: the widespread needs of coaches, instructors and teachers in contact sports (including martial arts) to acquire more skills for the management of children with autistic spectrum (which are increasingly numerous) in gyms and inside physical education contexts in schools. To date, in fact, there is no specific reference protocol to support their motor activities in contact sports [Sensory Seeking Punching Bag, National Autistic Society, 2019]. The G4A project has as its main objective a first, exploratory training-and- piloting of professional boxing coaches in order to be able to adapt the sport to the needs of these children.