Maximizing youth experiences in community sport programs is critical, particularly for vulnerable and/or marginalized youth who may have limited access and opportunity to these experiences. Using second-order latent growth modeling, this study explores the impact of a community sport program, the LiFE Sports Camp, on the development of social and sport skills among vulnerable youth. The importance of a sense of belonging as a key mechanism that contributes to youth outcomes also is examined. The findings of this research point to the value of community sport that is strategically designed to promote both sport and social outcomes in youth, as well as highlights the role of belonging in these contexts. Implications for sports management leaders and practitioners are discussed.
The acquisition of speech perception and speech production skills emerges over a protracted time course in congenitally deaf children with multichannel cochlear implants (CI). Only through comprehensive, longitudinal studies can the full impact of cochlear implantation be assessed. In this study, the performance of CI users was examined longitudinally on a battery of speech perception measures and compared with subjects with profound hearing loss who used conventional hearing aids (HA). The average performance of the multichannel cochlear implant users gradually increased over time and continued to improve even after 5 years of CI use. Speech intelligibility was assessed from recordings of the subjects' elicited speech and played to panels of listeners. Intelligibility was scored in terms of percentage of words correctly understood. The average scores for subjects who had used their CI for 4 years or more exceeded 40%.
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