He talked to everyone. He communicated.
Multiple case studies show autistic children develop stronger communication skills, emotional regulation, and confidence through team sports like football, basketball, and athletics. Psychiatrist Carmen Moreno emphasizes that structured sports provide safe environments where autistic children can practice social skills and develop meaningful peer relationships.
- Erik learned through football that his team of 12 players functioned as a unit, not as individuals
- Miguel progressed from running while looking backward to running ahead and trying to win
- Pau, a withdrawn player, began describing his matches and training to his therapist immediately after sessions
- Psychiatrist Carmen Moreno identifies autism by restricted, repetitive behavioral patterns requiring structured support
Sports participation significantly improves self-esteem, communication, and social integration for children with autism spectrum disorder, according to families and psychiatrists featured in Telefónica's Mejor Conectados initiative.
Erik used to see the world mostly through himself. Then he started playing football, and something shifted. His coach, Juanjo Capdevila, watched it happen over time—the moment when Erik understood that the field held eleven other players besides him, that they were all playing for each other, not just for themselves. By the end, Capdevila says, you wouldn't have known Erik had autism at all. He talked to everyone. He communicated.
This is what sports can do for children with autism spectrum disorder, according to families, coaches, and psychiatrists who have watched it unfold. The benefits are not theoretical. They are visible, measurable, and they compound. A child who once threw tantrums on the ground in the street learns to handle loss and victory. A withdrawn teenager who struggled to name his own emotions starts telling his therapist about his matches the moment they meet. A boy who ran looking backward, waiting for his teammates to catch up, now runs ahead trying to win.
Miguel was one of those runners. His mother, Inma Cardona, remembers him before athletics—a child who didn't speak, who expressed frustration by collapsing. Now, after training with coach Anna Caurín, he is different at every level. He is more enthusiastic, more hopeful, more himself. His physical fitness improved. His social connections deepened. His sense of what he could do expanded. "Each achievement we make with Miguel, we see it as a success," Caurín says. The shift from looking back to pushing forward is not just a running technique. It is a statement about how he sees himself in relation to others.
Psychiatrist Carmen Moreno explains that autism manifests in restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, and that children with autism spectrum disorder need extra support to advance personally and socially. But with the right structure—with a field, a team, a coach who understands—certain emotional and cognitive aspects of their lives can improve considerably. Sports provide that structure. They offer integration, personal challenge, effort, respect, perseverance, and the chance to learn what frustration means and how to move through it. They create a safe place to practice being part of something larger than yourself.
Pau and Jaume, brothers who play futsal and basketball respectively, show this in different ways. Pau is naturally withdrawn, struggling to articulate what he feels. But since he began playing futsal seriously, the first thing he does when he sees his therapist, Inma Pérez, is describe how his matches went. From there, real conversation opens. He has learned the rules. He has learned he is good at this. He has built self-esteem on a foundation of actual competence. Their father, Alberto Navarro, calls these "small victories"—things other parents might take for granted but that matter enormously to his family. The daily contact with children without autism, without this disorder, has helped his sons grow as people. And it has helped the other children grow too.
Maria José Alonso, Erik's mother, puts it simply: her son is motivated by things that matter to him, and football is one of them. The sport becomes a motivator, a reason to show up, to try, to belong. Carmen Moreno concludes that sports offer "an opportunity to be with others, to integrate into the community, to enjoy yourself, and often to feel competent." When you win and lose, you become responsible for those outcomes. When you set measurable goals, you build the capacity and will to do remarkable things. The field becomes a place where children with autism can connect, be seen, and discover what they are capable of.
These stories come from Mejor Conectados, a Telefónica initiative designed to make visible the talent and potential in people's lives, to show that when we connect, we can accomplish things we thought impossible. The company's president, José María Álvarez-Pallete, frames it as an effort to make the world more human by connecting people's lives. The platform features athletes like Rafa Nadal and Teresa Perales, and offers what it calls "master classes" from figures across sports and culture. But the real power lies in the quieter stories—the ones about children learning to run forward, to speak up, to know their own worth.
Citações Notáveis
During his integration, he took awareness that the team were the 12 players, that it wasn't just him. Everyone was there for him, and he for everyone.— Juanjo Capdevila, Erik's football coach
Each achievement we make with Miguel, we see it as a success. He used to run looking back, waiting for his teammates; now he runs ahead trying to win.— Anna Caurín, Miguel's athletics coach
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does sports specifically work for children with autism when other structured activities might not?
Because sports create something that's hard to fake—immediate, measurable feedback. You either made the goal or you didn't. Your teammate either passed to you or they didn't. There's no ambiguity, and for kids who struggle with social reading, that clarity is actually liberating. Plus you're doing it alongside other people, not in isolation.
But couldn't that pressure—the winning and losing—make things worse for a child who already struggles with frustration?
That's the thing. Yes, it could. But with the right coach, the right team, it becomes the place where they learn to handle it safely. Erik's coach didn't just teach him football. He taught him that losing is information, not catastrophe. And he did it in a place where everyone was learning the same lesson.
The stories mention communication improving dramatically. Is that because sports naturally require talking, or is something else happening?
It's both. Sports require communication, sure. But more than that—they give kids something real to talk about. Pau didn't suddenly become chatty. He became willing to describe his match, his training. That's the door opening. Once he's talking about something concrete he cares about, his therapist can help him go deeper into his feelings.
What about the children without autism in these teams? Are they changed by this too?
The parents say yes. When your child plays alongside someone with autism, they learn that difference isn't something to fear or fix. They learn to include, to adjust, to see capability in unexpected places. It works both ways.
Is there a risk that we're overstating what sports can do—that we're making it sound like a cure?
Absolutely. These aren't cures. They're opportunities. The psychiatrist is careful about that. But opportunity is not nothing. For a child who couldn't speak, who threw tantrums, to become someone who runs forward and talks to his teammates—that's a real change in how he lives his life.