Bed-Stuy Teacher Raises $800 To Take Autistic Students Climbing

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — The idea first occurred to Nat Hookway as she watched one of her students hanging happily on the pull-up bar she keeps in her office doorway. Hookway, an occupational therapist who helps autistic children develop their physical strength and social skills in a Brooklyn public school, decided her students were going rock climbing.

“It’s therapy disguised as play,” said Hookway, who has raised more than $800 on her GoFundMe campaign to take her students on a rock climbing field trip. “It’s a dream come true.”

Hookway, an avid climber in her own right, will take nine students from Bedford Stuyvesant's P.S. 231 at P.S. 54 to The Cliffs Climbing in Long Island City for a course on bouldering and belaying in May. Hookway believes the exercise was tailor-made to help her autistic students, whose condition not only impacts their sensory perception, but also their physical strength.

“Because the neurological system is delayed, a lot of our children are very weak,” said Hookway. “Being able to sit upright for a large majority is really challenging.”

Rock climbing helps develop bilateral coordination — the ability to complete two different actions with two different body parts — and strengthens the vestibular system — or balance — which are both vitally important to development and more difficult for children on the autism spectrum, Hookway said.

“When you’re hanging onto the wall, you know where you are in space because gravity is pulling you down,” said Hookway. The action forces climbers to think, “How to I move my body and move my leg to get myself up this wall?”

“It’s a body puzzle,” she added. “And you have to figure out the puzzle.”

Figuring out the puzzle has mental benefits as well. Not only can climbing strengthen cognitive skills, but it also rests on the ability to communicate. The children will be working with a belayer — a professional who will stand beneath them to anchor their harness ropes — and they will need to tell that person what they need.

“You’re working in trust,” said Hookway. “You have to use some communication, even if it’s, ‘No, I want to come down.’”

Hookway has been climbing since she was a teenager in Tasmania and will never forget how it helped her overcome a fear of heights. She can’t wait to see how the activity bolsters the confidence of her students.

“This might be an activity where they might do better than they think they can,” said Hookway. “And when you have confidence, other things become easier too.”

Hookway raised the money on GoFundMe.com because many of her students from low-income families and could not afford the $15 price of the two-hour field trip. Hookway has kept funding open because she hopes it’s the first of many such trips to come.

“Who knows?” Hoowkway said. “The sky’s the limit.”