Patterns of sport participation for youth with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disabilities

Abstract

A better understanding of the factors related to sport is essential for allowing families, service providers and policy makers to improve involvement for youth with ASD.

Individual and contextual predictors of retention in Special Olympics for youth with intellectual disability: who stays involved?

“…confidence, identity, social skills and emotional regulation), showing that generally, greater frequency is associated with more positive outcomes; however, too much involvement may be problematic, and benefits may be greatest when combined with other organised activities and with maturation (Hansen & Larson, 2007; Mahoney, Harris, & Eccles, 2006; Zarrett et al ., 2009). Other research has correlated SO frequency of involvement with positive psychosocial experiences, adaptive behaviour, access to resources, positive coach−athlete relationships and parental support (Ryan et al ., 2018). In reference to the current logistic regression model, participation may function as a proxy for a number of other variables that do not directly impact the decision to participate or only do so in a way that explains a very small portion of the variance.…”

“…Further, qualitative research with parents of young athletes in SO suggests parents believe SO offers an instructional environment that fosters personal competence, instils a sense of self‐efficacy, encourages athletes to set and work towards physical and social goals and is a secure and accepting environment that fosters relatedness and happiness (Goodwin, Fitzpatrick, Thurmeier, & Hall, 2006). Cross‐sectional methods also indicate higher frequency of sport participation is correlated with less athlete behaviour problems, a more positive coach−athlete relationship, broader community participation and greater parental support for child involvement (Ryan, Fraser‐Thomas, & Weiss, 2018). A missing piece to this work is a longitudinal investigation of changes in involvement.…”

The Influence of Child-Related Factors on Caregiver Perceptions of Their Child’s Sustained Participation in a Community Football Program: A Study of Children with and without Neurodevelopmental Disorders

“…Research exploring participation in OPA has found a range of child (e.g., symptom severity), familial (e.g., parent support) and systemic (e.g., program and policy-related) barriers and facilitators for children with NDDs [8,10,[15][16][17][18]. Much of this research, however, measures participation as the number of sports a child has attended [10,16] or their frequency of attendance [10,16,18]. This approach to measuring participation assumes that all children wish to participate in OPA, and as argued by Kiuppis [19], this is not always the case, whether they have a disability or not.…”

The Game of Life soccer program: Effect on skills, physical fitness and mobility in persons with intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder

“…The lowvolume training programme was selected, since in this population there are numerous barriers to performing physical activity (Mahy, Shields, Taylor, & Dodd, 2010). Moreover, recently, it has been reported that significant predictors of sport frequency among youth with intellectual disability consist of the following: availability and adequacy of resources, coach-athlete relationship and parents' attendance at practices (Ryan, Fraser-Thomas, & Weiss, 2017). In addition, one of the major physical activity barriers was the lack of accessibility to physical activity options that enable effective engagement in physical activity (Barr & Shields, 2011;Lin et al, 2010;McGarty & Melville, 2018).…”

“…In addition, one of the major physical activity barriers was the lack of accessibility to physical activity options that enable effective engagement in physical activity (Barr & Shields, 2011;Lin et al, 2010;McGarty & Melville, 2018). Moreover, recently, it has been reported that significant predictors of sport frequency among youth with intellectual disability consist of the following: availability and adequacy of resources, coach-athlete relationship and parents' attendance at practices (Ryan, Fraser-Thomas, & Weiss, 2017).…”