Posted: July 8, 2009 |(0) Comments

When Shorewood resident Alex Bader was in first grade, his mom, Linda, got a call home from the school - something that, she says, is usually not a good sign. On the other end of the phone was his teacher. She was crying because Alex had just read his first word.

Alex, now 9, has Down syndrome. He's in a mainstream class with a teacher's aide, and he's as active as any boy his age. He plays soccer, climbs rocks, swims and snow skis. He does archery, horseback rides and skateboards. He loves to ride a scooter and he has a brown belt in tae kwon do.

Reaching a milestone

One of the few things missing from Alex's list of activities: riding a bike. But since he went to Lose the Training Wheels Bike Camp in early July, that is no longer true.

After just three days of camp, Linda saw Alex ride a two-wheel bike by himself for the first time.

"I got the same feeling I did when I was on the phone with his first-grade teacher," she said. "That feeling of, he really can do it, he did it."

Lose the Training Wheels, sponsored by the Down Syndrome Association of Wisconsin and the Autism Society, is a five-day camp that teaches kids with special needs an important life skill: riding a bike with two wheels.

"It's good exercise, it helps make them more independent and it's another way to be more like their typically developing peers," said Emily Levine, executive director of the Autism Society. "It's healthy and it's social. It's an all around win."

When Linda signed her son up for the camp, those reasons were exactly what she had in mind.

"It's really important for Alex to learn to ride a bike as a life skill," she said. "He may or may not be able to drive a car, so it's important he can do this for work, to visit friends and family and to be able to go places other than where a bus will take him."

This is the second year DSAW and the Autism Society have sponsored Lose the Training Wheels Bike Camp in Milwaukee. Last year the camp was held in Wauwatosa and had 25 campers - the maximum the facility could hold.

This year the camp was held at Nicolet High School, where there was room for 39 campers.

Rollers teach balance

Lose the Training Wheels uses regular bikes with rollers in place of a back wheel. Each camper has two volunteers who stay with them the whole week, helping them with balance and giving them words of encouragement and congratulations as the week goes on.

The first two days of the camp are spent in an indoor gym. As the campers improve, they progress to rollers that provide less and less balance. By day three, campers begin to reach the level of a two-wheeler and they get to take their bikes outside.

By day three, Alex was doing just that.

"For Alex everything is a little harder to do," said Linda. "But when he puts his mind to it and is given support and motivation, he meets the challenge and often goes above it."

Alex was just one among many campers who learned how to ride a bike - something some of the kids and their parents once never thought possible.

"If someone had told me when I was pregnant that some day Alex would be swimming and skiing and skateboarding and now bicycling, I would have said, 'No way, that would be impossible for him,' " Linda said. "The camp gave him the motivation to succeed."