Author Description

This manual describes a physical fitness program for students with moderate and severe disabilities, which has as additional goals integration with nondisabled peers and improved attitudes of nondisabled peers toward students with disabilities. The first section presents background information, describes the program's development, and presents the data collected from the major research areas of the project (i.e., fitness, social interaction, and consumer satisfaction). The second section contains the components for implementing the program, including lesson plans for training the nondisabled partners, guidelines for the daily exercise sessions (i.e., a selection of exercise formats, activities for the sessions, suggestions for motivating participants, and program evaluation tools); a description of two exemplary exercise sessions; and a list of considerations to help plan program implementation. The final section contains appended materials, including: an aerobic conditioning unit, a handicapping conditions unit, the program instructional unit skills checklist, an assignment sheet, an activities packet, fitness evaluation forms, program evaluation consumer satisfaction survey, ideas for reinforcement selection, ideas for monitoring progress, teacher worksheets, and letters and forms. Several bibliographies provide additional references on fitness, fitness curriculum, handicapping conditions, sensitizing middle/high school students to disabilities, movies, and filmstrips. (DB)