Karate Week: Hwang Studio Teaches Karate To Special Needs Students

For all the awards on display at his karate studio, Hwang Karate owner and master Paul Del Sordo is most proud of his ability to connect with his students, particularly children with special needs.

"I'd rather teach a child with special needs," Del Sordo said. "They're loyal, they love it, they're on time and they try hard."

In addition to his general interest adult and child classes, Del Sordo teaches students with neurological and physical conditions, including children on the autism spectrum, students with attention deficit disorder and ones with Down syndrome.

The program began in the mid-1980s when medical professionals from St. Barnabas Hospital in Livingston asked Del Sordo if he was interested in teaching special needs children. "I didn't know anything about special needs kids, but I never turn down a challenge," Del Sordo said.

With the help of physical therapists and occupational therapists from St. Barnabas, Del Sordo built a martial arts program for special needs children.

"He's extremely patient with them," Sue Wissen, a physical therapist at St. Barnabas who has worked extensively with Del Sordo, said. "He treats them like regular kids."

While he no longer works with the hospital, the program is going strong, drawing children from throughout the region to a service that Del Sordo said is unique to the state, and possibly to the Eastern seaboard.

Teaching martial arts to children with special needs requires an instructor with a singular skill set. Not only are most of these children unused to physical sport, but many also have difficulty with baseline socializing and communication. In teaching the class, Del Sordo has learned to read each student and tailor his instruction to them.  

"Each child has a specific need," Del Sordo said. "It's not a cookie-cutter thing."

While he is able to mainstream some students into regular classes, special needs students begin their instruction in one-on-one classes in a program designed specially for them that includes a complete rating system and belt program for them alone.  

When St. Barnabas first approached him, Del Sordo thought teaching karate to special needs students would be easy. It wasn't; learning how to connect with each student has been a slow, but rewarding, process.

In an early class, he asked a student for their name. The child was silent, so Del Sordo asked another. The first student called out a name when Del Sordo got to the second student. Del Sordo was confused until he learned the first student had a condition called a processing delay which made him need two to three seconds to understand information and respond to it.

Once Del Sordo understood the delay, he learned to wait. It was an early lesson in how students learn at varying speeds and through different techniques.

Del Sordo believes the martial arts are ideal for children on the autism spectrum. Students with obsessive-compulsive disorder are attracted to the structured, ritualistic nature of martial arts. In addition, karate's emphasis on focus and balance can be life-changing lessons for special needs children.

Over the 15 years he's taught martial arts to special needs children, he's learned how sometimes seemingly imperceptible elements can have a drastic affect for some of his students. For example, I didn't notice that there was a faint buzzing sound in the room we were in, until he pointed it out. That sound, he said, could drive some of his students to distraction.

That situation could be fixed easily by moving instruction to a quieter room. It's an illustration of Del Sordo's overall approach to teaching martial arts to special needs children; he learns the way the child needs to be taught, then he teaches.

"Once you find out what makes a kid tick, you can go and make them do what you want to do," Del Sordo said.