Be their guide

Young adults with disability often need help to navigate the entire gym experience.

The more information you can give them about the space before they arrive, the more they can prepare for their visit and enjoy the experience.

Share practical advice such as information on car parking and how to access the changing rooms.

Logistical support

Assistance with accessing the gym setting

    • Transport to/from the gym

    • Ensuring the young adult with disability can access the gym and facilities

    • Proximity to home, work, public transport and/or disability parking

    • Organisational assistance with gym membership

    • Organisational assistance with payment and funding (for example, NDIS)

    • Organisational assistance with support people and specialist support, if required

    • Ensuring physical assistance in the gym to navigate the space and equipment, if required

    • Information on the gym website about access, opening hours, disability parking, hoist access, change rooms and specialised gym equipment

    • Social stories - using visual, verbal or other methods to tell stories that explain situations (Cérge – Eltham Leisure Centre Cerge Visual Story)

    • Apps to assist with access or navigation of a gym facility (Cerge's app and website and Bindi Maps).

    • Pre-start information gathering

    • Most often, family and carers

    • Inclusion support coordinators

    • NDIS support coordinators

    • Specialists (for example, the young adult’s physiotherapist)

    • Disability awareness

    • Advocacy

    • Supportive

    • Able to access and/or provide services required by the individual

Making the physical and sensory environment welcoming for young adults with disability

  • Ensuring adequate space around equipment

  • Ensuring the gym floor is free of obstacles

  • Provide adapted and specialised equipment or equipment that can be accessed from a wheelchair

  • Providing quiet/low sensory spaces and/or times in the gym

  • Ensuring the physical environment of the change rooms meets the needs of young adults with disability

An example, Pre-start information gathering

A process of communicating with a person with disability, their family or carers about their needs within the gym setting. Usually completed by an inclusion officer or a staff member within the facility who has been assigned to take on enquiries from potential members who self-identify as having a disability.

Lived Experience

Our research could not happen without the individual and collective contributions of those with lived experience of neurodivergence, and those who love and care for them.

We acknowledge and value their unique expertise. Their perspectives are crucial to our mission to enrich the lives of Autistic people, their families and their carers through high-quality scientific research, innovation and translation and our vision for a world where Autistic people, their families and their carers thrive.

Acknowledgement of Country

We acknowledge that we work on the unceded lands of many traditional Indigenous custodians in Victoria and across Australia.

We recognise their ongoing connection to the land and value their unique contribution to our research, and to wider Australian society.

We pay our respects to Elders past and present and thank them for their ongoing care of this beautiful country’s land, skies, and waterways.

Diversity

We are committed to embracing diversity and eliminating all forms of discrimination. We welcome all people irrespective of neurotype, ethnicity, lifestyle choice, faith, sexual orientation or gender identity.