The Participation of People with Intellectual Disabilities in Parasports

The Participation of People with Intellectual
Disabilities in Parasports
Jan Burns（Canterbury Christ Church University, UK）

Introduction
The position of sport in the lives of people with intellectual disabilities has come avery long way and now plays a much more central role, from grassroots participation
in local communities to a place on the podium at the Paralympics. This paper will
describe this journey, the organisations involved, Paralympic inclusion and future
developments, including lessons for Tokyo 2020. It will also evidence the impact thatsports participation has on athletes, their families and society.

Definitions
When we talk about people with intellectual impairments we are talking about
people who meet three specific criteria, as defined by the World Health Organisation:
International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health（WHO: ICF, 2001）.
These three criteria are:1.

Significant impairment in intellectual functioning, usually measured by an IQ
test. This means that the person has deficits in their cognitive functioning,commonly called intelligence. This may include cognitive abilities such asattention, concentration, abstract reasoning and thinking, reaction time, mental
processing, memory etc. Many IQ tests will have sub-tests, sometimes divided
into domains such as verbal comprehension, working memory, processing speed
and perceptual reasoning, providing subscale IQ scores and an overall IQ score.
The common cut off used to identify intellectual disabilities is determinedstatistically, as two standard deviations below the average IQ of the population,
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usually taken as a score of 70-75 and below. This constitutes about 2-2.5％ of
any population. Many people will have non-standard profiles across IQ tests,
meaning that they may have strengths and weaknesses in different areas and
IQ testing is not always an accurate science, with individual variance andvariance between the tests affecting consistency.
2.

Significant impairment in adaptive behaviour. The functional capacity of aperson is not dictated by IQ alone, but is influenced by their context, personal
resources, support and education. The results of these factors determine theirability to manage everyday activities, called adaptive behaviour. Tests ofadaptive behaviour commonly include assessments of skills such as social
behaviour, communication, numeracy and literacy, and self-care including items
such as making meals, dressing, handling money and travel. Commonly theseskills are grouped into three domains: social, conceptual and practical skills andtests provide a developmental score such that a person’s adaptive skills will becompared to those across an age range and differences between theirchronological age and their functional performance identified. Adaptive
behaviour is very culturally dependent and tests must only be used on
populations for which they have been developed. In many countries there are
no standard tests of adaptive behaviour and this assessment is made by clinicalobservation and interviewing parents or carers.

3.

Age of onset, usually taken as age 18. This is to establish that the impairment
has been there throughout the whole developmental period and therefore will
have had a pervasive impact. This distinction is important as there may be
people who meet the first two criteria, but for whom their future trajectory isquite different. This includes people who have acquired some form of brain
injury through an accidental trauma （e. g. head injury） or disease （e. g.
tumour）, after the developmental period. This means that these people alreadyhave many skills which may remain and they may also have the mental
capacity to adapt their learning within the rehabilitation process to regain lostskills. Having intellectual disabilities throughout the developmental periodmeans that both the cognitive skills are impaired and also the capacity to
manage and compensate for this is also impaired, leading to greater overall
impairment.

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The Participation of People with Intellectual Disabilities in Parasports

For a person to be identified as having intellectual disabilities all of these threeelements must be present and they must be considered together by the professional
within the diagnostic process. Within those identified as having intellectual disabilities
there is much variation and sometimes the level of impairment may be described as
mild, moderate, severe or profound, dependent on IQ scores.
The reason why an individual may have intellectual disabilities varies considerably,
but includes genetic differences （e. g. Down syndrome, Fragile X）; complications
during pregnancy（e. g. foetal alcohol syndrome）; birth complications（e. g. oxygen
starvation）and diseases or toxic exposure（e. g. measles, meningitis, malnutrition）（Hatton & Emerson, 2015）. Additional health problems are very common andincrease the more the severe the intellectual disability. One recent population study
in Scotland identified the mean number of additional health conditions as 11, and 99％
of people with intellectual disabilities had at least one additional health condition（Kinnear et al., 2018）.
As a consequence, many people with intellectual disabilities suffer secondary healthconditions such as obesity, cardiac, respiratory and metabolic conditions. This resultsin the average longevity for people with intellectual disabilities being shorter thanthat of those in the mainstream population（Robertson, Hatton, Emerson, & Baines,
2015）. Not only do intellectual disabilities lead to physical vulnerability, but also to
psychological vulnerability（Dunham, Kinnear, Allan, Smiley, & Cooper, 2018; Hatton,
Emerson, Robertson, & Baines, 2018）. Sadly, the stigma associated with intellectual
disabilities is still pervasive and can lead to people being socially excluded, exploitedand bullied. The impaired cognitive capacity of the individual to manage thesechallenges, together with social and economic disadvantages, brought by low income
and unemployment, reduces the psychological resilience of the individual andincreases prevalence of mental health problems. Such problems include both common
disorders such as anxiety and depression and also more severe and enduring
problems such as psychosis（Hatton et al., 2018）.
Nevertheless, many people with intellectual disabilities are extremely resilient anddespite the challenges put before them lead very fulfilling lives. However, it is the
responsibility of society to provide the opportunities and support required to include
all those with intellectual disabilities and support them to achieve as much as
possible. One well evidenced way of improving an individual’s physical and43

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psychological well-being is through sport and it is increasingly being recognised that
this is a very important habilitative vehicle for people with intellectual disabilities,
their families and society（Winnick & Porretta, 2016）.

Sports Organisations for People with Intellectual Disabilities
The Special Olympics
The Special Olympics is probably the most well known disability sports
organisation, serving 5.5 million people with intellectual disabilities and active in 193
countries. The organisation was founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in the 1960s,
who started a day camp at her home for ‘impoverished’ children with ‘mental
retardation’. Funded through the Kennedy Foundation this grew to have an inauguralgames in 1968, with 1,500 athletes attending and also the adoption of the name ‘Special
Olympics’. In 1971 the US Olympic Committee gave official approval to use the word
‘Olympics’, and this was followed by official recognition of the organisation by theInternational Olympic Committee （IOC） in 1977. The use of the title ‘Olympic’ isclosely guarded and the Special Olympics is the only organisation outside of theInternational Olympic sport movement to be able to use the term ‘Olympic’（Brittain,
2016）.
The stated mission of the Special Olympics is:“.....to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety
of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities,
giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstratecourage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills andfriendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and thecommunity.” http://www.specialolympics.org/mission.aspx
Over and above international, regional and national programmes of competitions,involving 32 different sports, the Special Olympics runs a variety of other activities
including, ‘Healthy Athletes’（health screening）, ‘Unified Sports’（bringing together
disabled and non-disabled athletes）, coaching and training for coaches, education,fund-raising and empowerment. Increasingly the organisation has become more
involved in humanitarian initiatives and campaigning for social inclusion. As part of44

The Participation of People with Intellectual Disabilities in Parasports

the organisation’s 50th birthday celebrations it launched a new initiative ‘The Inclusion
Revolution’, to campaign for the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities in all
walks of life, no matter what their level of disability. The theme of this initiative is todemonstrate that sport can bring inclusion and through inclusion peoples’ lives canbe changed, both for those with and without intellectual disabilities, and in ways
encompassing education, work, governance, culture and social life. Through themedium of telling the story of ‘game changing’ people, partnerships, events andprojects, the Special Olympics is attempting to illustrate in a very personal manner
what inclusion means and the wide-ranging beneficial outcomes.
Another very significant programme run by the Special Olympics is ‘Inclusive
Health’. The aim of this programme is to train health professionals and others todevelop inclusive health care systems, disseminate health resources and provide
health screenings at Special Olympic events to identify undiagnosed conditions which
need treatment. In a recent report the figures reported demonstrate the significant
impact of this programme, with between 2016-2018 over 54,100 screenings having
taken place, 36,000 subsequent referrals and 115 health professionals trained（Special
Olympics, 2019）. This report states that over 3.5 million people have improved accessto health and aims to reach over 11 million people with intellectual disabilities.
Hence, whilst the Special Olympics’ activity is premised on sporting activity its
objectives and reach are much broader. As a consequence, there are somefundamental differences between Special Olympics competitions and those of othersports organizations. In the Special Olympics athletes of all ability levels areencouraged to participate, and every athlete is recognized for his/her performance.
Competitions are structured so that athletes compete with other athletes of similar
ability in equitable divisions1.
This approach emphasises inclusion and a range of competition performance as
opposed to level of impairment and achieving elite performance standards. Events are
divided into ‘divisions’ with guidance that a variation of fifteen percent between highand low scores should form a division, in addition to age and gender. Competitions
are run under Special Olympic rules and not those of the Sport’s International
Federation, allowing greater adaptation for those with greater impairment. To

1

http://resources.specialolympics.org/Topics/Sports/Divisioning.aspx
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compete in the Special Olympics athletes need to be over eight years old and haveevidence of being diagnosed with intellectual disabilities, usually through evidence,such as doctor’s letters or school reports.

VIRTUS（previously INAS）
The only other global sports organisation for all people with intellectual disabilities
is VIRTUS: World Intellectual Impairment Sport, which was rebranded from its
previous name ‘INAS’ very recently in October 2019. This organisation started as theFederation for Para-athletes with Intellectual Disabilities （INAS-FMH） and wasfounded in 1986 in the Netherlands with the aim of promoting high level sports
participation for the then named athletes with ‘mental handicaps’. Originally it had 14
member nations and in 1989 held its first ‘World Games for Athletes with Intellectual
Disability’ in Sweden. Today it has grown to an organisation involving over 80
nations, reaching over 300,000 athletes and running a Global Games every four years
which attracted over 1,000 athletes to the city of Brisbane in 2019.
The mission of VIRTUS is to promote the opportunity for people with intellectual
impairments to achieve excellence in sport and access high level competition.
VIRTUS is involved in 16 mainstream sports, all run under that Sport’s Federation
rules. It has strict eligibility criteria requiring a portfolio of evidence of diagnosis,
based on the WHO − ICF definition （World Health Organisation, 2001）, to besubmitted which is then scrutinised by a panel of expert psychologists andpsychiatrists. Once eligibility has been evidenced athletes are entered onto a masterlist and allowed to compete internationally in VIRTUS and International Paralympic
Committee （IPC） sanctioned events. VIRTUS holds the status of an International
Organisation of Sports for the Disabled（IOSD）recognised by the IPC, and therefore
is seen as a part of the ‘Paralympic family’. VIRTUS has a formal contract with the
IPC to provide the primary eligibility procedures to ensure eligibility to compete inthis group in Paralympic competition. This is in contrast to the Special Olympics,
which whilst having the name ‘Olympics’ has no formal relationship with either the
Olympics or the Paralympics. Athletes may compete in both VIRTUS and the Special
Olympics, and indeed many athletes come into VIRTUS having been talent spottedthrough Special Olympic competition. Likewise, when VIRTUS athletes retire from46

The Participation of People with Intellectual Disabilities in Parasports

elite competition they may well return to competition in the Special Olympics.
VIRTUS is divided into five geographical regions, who organise national, regional
and world competitions. In 2017 it expanded its remit to develop two more classes ofcompetition. This included II2 for those with more significant impairment. Until then
all those with intellectual disabilities competing in VIRTUS/INAS competed in one
class regardless of their level of impairment, resulting in those with greater levels of
impairment, including those with Down Syndrome, rarely coming through tointernational competition. Echoing the functional approach to classification taken by
the IPC, VIRTUS has introduced II2 and is currently working on research toestablish an evidence-based approach to underpin this functional classification. Until
this system is finalised only those with Down Syndrome can compete in this class as
it is known（with the exception of some of those with mosaic Down Syndrome）that
this group has higher levels of functional impairment. Once the classification system
is finalised all those with additional significant functional impairment will compete inthis group. As a result of demand for an international sports organisation to support
athletes with autism, a third class, II3, has been introduced for those athletes without
intellectual disabilities, but with autism. The introduction of these additional classes
reflects the range of disabilities within the umbrella title of intellectual impairments.

The Paralympics
The Paralympics has a very simple vision ‘make an inclusive world through Para
sport’2. The mission of the IPC is ‘to lead the Paralympic Movement, oversee thedelivery of the Paralympic Games and support members to enable Para athletes toachieve sporting excellence’. As well as providing leadership and delivery of thesummer and winter Paralympic Games the IPC acts as the International Federation
for ten Para sports, including swimming and athletics. The IPC recognises ten eligible
impairments, within three groups, physical, visual and intellectual impairment, andgoverns a classification system based on levels of functional impairment.
To compete in IPC sanctioned events, first an athlete must be deemed to meet the2

https://www.paralympic.org/ipc/who-we-are47

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primary eligibility criteria for that impairment. As mentioned earlier, for athletes withintellectual disabilities this process is carried out by VIRTUS and then recognised by
the IPC. However, an athlete must then go through a second process calledclassification, the purpose of which is:‘To ensure competition is fair and equal, all Paralympic sports have a classification
system in place which ensures that winning is determined by skill, fitness, power,
endurance, tactical ability and mental focus, the same factors that account forsuccess in sport for able bodied athletes. The purpose of classification is to minimise
the impact of impairments on the competition outcome.’ （http://www.paralympic.
org/Classification/Introduction）
This process is carried out by the sport’s International Federation, the IPC
themselves for the ten sports governed by the IPC, and for those sports governed
separately the process must be approved by the IPC.
The inclusion of athletes with intellectual disabilities in the Paralympic movement
has not been straight forward. In 1992 athletes with intellectual disabilities wereintroduced in the Tignes Paralympic Winter Games. However, in the Barcelona
summer Paralympics which followed in the same year a separate, later, event washeld for these athletes called the ‘Paralympic Games for Persons with Mental
Handicap’（Brittain, 2016）. The ‘inclusion’ but separation of the games for people withintellectual disabilities away from the rest of the Paralympic Games caused somedebate and was seen as a discriminatory act on behalf of the IPC, used to appease
protesting voices, but avoid real inclusion.
As time progressed such obstacles were overcome, at least in principle, and in 1996
a small programme for athletes with intellectual disabilities was included in the
Atlanta Paralympic Games. The programme was enlarged for the 2000 Sydney
Games, including athletics, swimming, table tennis and basketball. However, theaftermath of these Games saw the intellectual disabilities impairment group excluded
from future Paralympic involvement. This resulted from the Spanish basketball teamcheating by fielding the majority of players without intellectual disabilities, a memberof the team then whistleblowing and an investigation then ensuing. Eligibility at thistime was managed by INAS-FMH and their processes were seen to be inadequate
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and as a consequence athletes with intellectual disabilities were excluded until morerobust systems of eligibility could be demonstrated. The organisation was revised,bringing in new members, structures and governance systems. A much more robust
and stringent eligibility process was put in place by 2009.
However, since 2000 governance within the IPC had also moved on and there wasnow a requirement to have an evidence-based classification system in place. Whilst
part of classification is to group people with a similar level of impairment intofunctionally equivalent groups, a step before this is to demonstrate that the
impairment has an impact on the performance of that sport to ensure that it issuitable for Paralympic inclusion. For those with a severe visual impairment playing
football, or for an athlete with a leg amputation competing in swimming, this impact
is not hard to prove. However, for those with intellectual disabilities showing, if andhow, an intellectual impairment impacts on a sport is more complex, and thendeveloping a classification process to demonstrate this is quite a challenge, especiallywith little existing research. Hence, a joint INAS/IPC research group was establishedin 2008 and a research programme embarked upon to achieve these IPC classification
criteria.
On the basis of these developments, in 2009 at the IPC General Assembly in Kuala
Lumpur, the IPC membership voted to re-include athletes with intellectual disabilities
in competitions including the London 2012 Games. Between 2009 and 2012 theresearch behind the classification system was completed and a classification system
launched, which enabled 120 athletes to compete in three sports; athletics, swimmingand table tennis. This was comparable to the number of athletes who competed
previously in Sydney 2000. The classification system comprises a number of parts
including a generic sports intelligence battery of mostly computerised tests tomeasure cognitive skills such as reaction time, and then a set of sports specific tests
to measure such factors as pacing ability in athletics, technical skills in table tennis
and stroke patterns in swimming. An assessment of training history and incompetition observation make up the final components.
Subsequently, a similar number of athletes competed in Rio and are expected tocompete in Tokyo 2020, but as yet, whilst the range of events within the threeincluded sports of athletics, swimming and table tennis has been widened, inclusion
remains constricted to these three sports. As a result, it is unlikely that the number
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of athletes competing in the summer Games will grow substantially, until otherrevisions are made. However, it is well known that the summer Paralympics is facing
increasing financial pressures, timetable restrictions and lobbying by varied groups
all wanting their sports, impairment groups, or classes to be better represented. This
provides the IPC with little flexibility to expand the current programme.
Nevertheless, that intellectual impairment sport has only one class within the
Paralympics, compared to the other impairment groups, remains a distinct inequality.
This means that those who compete at Paralympic level are not representative of thevast range of levels of functional impairments routinely seen within athletes withintellectual disabilities. The development of class II2 for those with more significant
impairments within VIRTUS, with a classification system built upon IPC principles, isseen as a step towards increasing the pressure on the IPC to widen its inclusion of
athletes with intellectual disabilities. However, first VIRTUS needs to be able todemonstrate the viability of more than one class within sports and build a stronglevel of competition. Within the winter Paralympics Games there is more movementwith the likely inclusion of cross-country skiing in the 2026 Games.
It perhaps should also be remembered that Paralympic inclusion, whilst reaping
many benefits in terms of exposure to a world stage and the impact on a vast
viewing public, only actually includes a very small number of individuals, and canlead to resources being focussed on only the Paralympic sports, resulting in the
reduction of funding to other sports and the loss of opportunities for a wider range ofathletes with intellectual disabilities. Hence, it is important that whilst the inclusion ofthese athletes in the Paralympics is supported, so should other sporting initiatives
which lead to a wide range of impacts and include larger numbers of athletes.

The impact of sports inclusion for people with intellectual
disabilities, their families and society
The athlete with intellectual disabilities
The positive impact on the physical, psychological and social well-being of people
engaging in sport is well proven（Biddle, Ciaccioni, Thomas, & Vergeer, 2019）and allof these benefits are equally true for people with intellectual disabilities. However, it
should be acknowledged that for people with intellectual disabilities there are some50

The Participation of People with Intellectual Disabilities in Parasports

differences that makes sport especially important for this group. Firstly, they are
more vulnerable to physical, psychological and social issues than the rest of the
population, and all of these issues have been shown to be improved by engagement insport and exercise. For example, it is known that people with intellectual disabilities
suffer more from conditions secondary to their initial impairments such as obesity,
mental health problems, loneliness, economic deprivation, abuse and unemployment（Dunham et al., 2018; Hatton et al., 2018; Robertson, Beyer, Emerson, Baines, &Hatton, 2019）. Secondly, as a product of their position in society people withintellectual disabilities are often excluded from accessing this important method of
improving their well-being（Iyer et al., 2019）. For example, they may not have theconfidence, knowledge or financial resources to access sport and exercise
opportunities. Due to their impairments they may be actively excluded fromprogrammes, without sufficient adaptations being made or alternative opportunities
being provided. This leads to strikingly low levels of fitness in young people withintellectual disabilities, making them even more vulnerable to secondary healthproblems later in life（Wouters, Evenhuis, & Hilgenkamp, 2019）. Hence, it is evenmore important that sporting opportunities are not just made available, but thatpeople with intellectual disabilities are supported to access them.
The research demonstrating the benefits of such engagement is now substantial
and will be reviewed in brief below.

Physical impacts
In a systematic review of Special Olympics participation Tint, Thomson, and Weiss（2017）concluded that sufficient evidence exists to suggest that motor skills, cardiovascular endurance, body fat reduction, and blood pressure can be improved by sportparticipation. In an evaluation of their own inclusive health programmes the Special
Olympics were able to demonstrate positive changes in behavioural patterns such asincreased regular exercise, healthier eating, and physical health gains in terms ofbody weight and blood pressure （Special Olympics, 2019）. Similar findings haveresulted from studies looking both at projects aimed specifically at demonstrating thepotential to include health gains of introducing sport or fitness interventions and also
from the evaluation of naturally occurring sporting opportunities. For example, Collins
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and Staples（2017）demonstrated increased muscle strength, cardio endurance andaerobic capacity through the introduction of a ten-week fitness programme forchildren with intellectual disabilities aged 7-12. In a further systematic review ofstudies aimed at examining the benefits of physical activities for people withintellectual disabilities, including both Special Olympic and generic programmes,
Pestana, Barbieri, Vitório, Figueiredo, and Mauerberg-deCastro（2018）concluded thatrobust evidence exists for improvements in muscle strength, mobility, blood pressure,muscle mass and postural stability amongst other outcomes.

Psychological impacts
In a very recent review and meta-analysis involving 109 studies Kapsal et al.（2019）concluded that not only did physical activity have a large impact on physical health,but also on the psychosocial health of young people with intellectual disabilities. They
also made the important point that given the basal rate of fitness and well-being iscomparatively low compared to typically developing youth, physical exercise
interventions can have larger than expected outcomes in terms of improvement,
especially for physical health for young people with intellectual disabilities. Kapsal etal. （2019） also found that greater gains are made when the physical activity is
performed in groups, suggesting the added social benefit of activities such as teamsports. In terms of the types of psychosocial changes seen, these include
improvements in self-concept（Pan & Davis, 2019）, self-esteem（Crawford, Burns, &Fernie, 2015）, self-control （Choi & Cheung, 2016）, psychological well-being and areduction in problem behaviour, including mental health issues such as anxiety（Pestana et al., 2018）. In addition to improvements in psychosocial functioning, sport
engagement has demonstrated improvement in cognitive skills. For example, Chen,
Tsai, Wang, and Wuang（2015）, demonstrated how table tennis training improved
children with intellectual disabilities’ visual perceptual and executive functioning
skills.

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Social impacts
Loneliness and limited social networks are common risks for people withintellectual disabilities, which belonging to a sports club or team can ameliorate（Hatton & Emerson, 2015）. Crawford et al.（2015）found that those involved in sport
had larger social networks and this was particularly true for those involved in Special
Olympic sport. Indeed, the Special Olympics has invested heavily in their Unified
Sport programme to bring those with and those without disabilities together throughsport, and the evaluations of these programmes have demonstrated improved wellbeing, friendship networks and a sense of belonging（Bowers et al., 2016）. In a recent
systematic review of this area Scifo et al.（2019）concluded that there is sufficientevidence to recommend that targeted sports intervention programmes should be
developed to improve health and increase social inclusion for this population.
The wider benefits of participation in sport are also being recognised in terms ofthe development of skills from the sporting environment which can then be used toenhance the person’s wider context, for example in accessing employment. Such skills
include team working, discipline, perseverance, managing failure and psychologicalresilience. Hence, employment has been a major focus of the Special Olympics’‘Inclusion Revolution’ initiative with a specific campaign called ‘Delivering Jobs’, incollaboration with Autism Speak and Best Buddies（a global non-profit organisation
focussed on social inclusion）. Together they have made a commitment to create
pathways to one million employment and leadership opportunities by 20253.

Family impact
Families are key to encouraging people with intellectual disabilities to participate insport and are usually an important factor in helping young people with intellectual
disabilities access and maintain sporting activity（McGarty, Downs, Melville, & Harris,
2018; Robertson, Emerson, Baines, & Hatton, 2018）. However, involvement in sport3

https://www.specialolympics.org/about/press-releases/delivering-jobs-campaign-to-create-pathways-to-one-million-employment-and-leadership-opportunities-by-2025-for-people-withautism-intellectual-and-or-developmental-differences
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has positive benefits for the family, especially as having children with intellectual
disabilities can lead to increased isolation and stress. Engagement in sport has beenshown to bring families together and reduce isolation, increase the positive time spent
together, increase the expectations they have of their offspring, and recognise theircompetence and independence（Bowers et al., 2016; Kaur, 2016; Werner, 2015）.

Societal impact
Social inclusion through sport is a two-way interaction with outcomes not just for
the individual with intellectual disabilities, but also for the people with whom theyinteract. The impact for society of inclusion through sport is also multi-layered, withat one end of the continuum the potential influence on societal attitudes by the ‘mythbusting’ presentation of elite athletes at the Paralympics achieving performances wellbeyond the reach of most well motivated non-disabled athletes, to at the other end,
the influential inter-personal relationships built up between two team mates playing
football in a unified sports programme.
Research has demonstrated that watching athletes with intellectual disabilities
compete at the elite level can positively influence social attitudes（Carew, Noor, &Burns, 2019; Ferrara, Burns, & Mills, 2015）. High profile, positive media campaigns
have been used well by organisations such as the Special Olympics and the IPC toinfluence public perceptions and combat the negative attitudes which lead to
exclusion. High quality, positive interactions which challenge stereotypes are
particularly effective（McManus, Feyes, & Saucier, 2011）, and sport provides many
opportunities, especially at the elite level to provide this type of contact. The Special
Olympics has been engaged in monitoring public attitudes for some years and set out
specifically to change attitudes, especially by using the impact of unified sports as away of changing the attitudes of non-disabled players. One study found thatengagement in a unified football project improved the understanding of the disabledplayers by the non-disabled players by as much as 50％（Norins, Harada, & Parker,
2006）. Evaluation of the Special Olympic World games has demonstrated improvedsocial perceptions, understanding and willingness to engage with people withintellectual disabilities（Norins, Parker, & Siperstein, 2007）.
The belief that increasing positive interactions between two groups, one less valued
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than the other, will increase the standing of the undervalued group is based upon
Allport’s （1954） ‘contact’ hypothesis, and it is this principle which underpins theendeavour to bring together those with and without intellectual disabilities in positive
circumstances. Sport provides this opportunity, in terms of people competing together
in unified or integrated sports programmes, volunteers, officials and organisers at
events and the general public as the potential spectators. Research shows that thisinteraction is effective and can not only impact attitudes towards people withintellectual disabilities, but can also positively impact on the person without the
impairment. For example, Li and Wu（2019）showed that not only did the attitude ofvolunteers working with Special Olympics improve, but this interaction impacted to
improve the volunteers’ own self esteem.

Tokyo and the future
The Tokyo Paralympics will be the next big staged event for Para-athletes withintellectual disabilities. In terms of the inclusion of these athletes in this movement it
is an incremental step, in that they are now an established part of the event, they
adhere to all the classification, doping and other governance procedures and compete
under the same terms as any other athletes. There has been no great expansion
between Tokyo and Rio, so in many ways the competition territory is known.
However, as with any Games the home culture will impact significantly upon thosecompeting, those attending and those watching from afar. How the Games isdelivered and perceived is very dependent on the context and culture of the hostingcity. So what will be the experience of those athletes with intellectual disabilities
competing at these Games, and their families, coaches and supporters? What will
people both with and without intellectual disabilities perceive when watching theseathletes compete? What changes should or can be leveraged through this showcase?
An issue that permeates through all these questions is the visibility of the athleteswith intellectual disabilities. Unlike many of the athletes competing in the Paralympics
their impairment is invisible. Unless already aware that Para-athletes with intellectual
disabilities compete in classes S14（swimming）, T20（athletics track）, F20（athletics
field）and TT11（table tennis）, when watching these athletes, at best the audience
may assume some mild physical or visual disability or worse may question why these55

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athletes are competing at all in the Paralympics as they look non-disabled. Hence, thelack of visibility presents a problem of representation. To represent the range ofathletes competing at the event to the spectating audience, the athlete’s impairment
needs to be identified in some way. One way is to explain the classification system, aswith the LEXI system4 introduced in London 2012, which works well if the audienceis prepared to attend to it. Another way is to represent and challenge stereotypes
through advance media coverage. Based on the success of the London 2012 coverage,in the UK, Channel 4 produced some engaging and challenging TV trailers for Rio
2016, based on the theme ‘We’re the Superhumans’5. However, to represent elite
athletes who clearly had intellectual disabilities remained a challenge, resolved byincluding athletes with Down Syndrome. Whilst this solved the issue in some way it
did not truly solve it as, for the reasons explained earlier in this paper, no athletewith Down Syndrome met the performance standards required to compete at the Rio
Paralympics and the sport they were depicted in was boxing, a sport in which Paraathletes with intellectual disabilities do not compete.
Rio 2016 took another approach, again consistent with their culture and theparticular political and economic challenges they faced staging the Olympics andParalympics at that time. A sponsoring partner was a large cinema corporation andin advance of the Games, short 2-3-minute, good quality videos were produced
featuring prominent Brazilian Para-athletes. In advance of the Games, before viewing
a film one of these videos would be played, much like an advert or preview for a
future film. As visiting the cinema is a very popular leisure activity in Brazil a largepart of the population became familiar with the personal stories of their Para-athletes
and so rather than engaging with the politics of the Games the organisers encouraged
spectators to engage with the individual athletes, through knowing their personal
story and then having the opportunity to support their performance in competition.
The Paralympics offers the opportunity to change ‘invisible’ to ‘incredible’ in termsof media coverage and as a consequence change public attitudes. It also brings into
focus very practical issues of inclusion, from obvious ones of physical access for wheel
chair users, to those less considered such as accessible information for those withcognitive impairments, and autism ‘friendly’ environments. Legacy is frequently
4

http://lexi.global/

5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IocLkk3aYlk
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The Participation of People with Intellectual Disabilities in Parasports

considered in terms of economic investment, usage of facilities and sporting
developments, but it is often these challenges to social inclusion that have the most
personal and meaningful impact on those involved. How Tokyo will engage with its
Para-athletes with intellectual disabilities is yet to be seen, but it does provide anunmissable opportunity to educate, influence and improve social inclusion for thislarge sector of society.
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パラリンピック研究会

紀要 vol.13

知的障がい者のパラスポーツ参加
ジャン・バーンズ（英国カンタベリー・キリスト・チャーチ大学）

スポーツを実施することは，健康な生活を構築し維持するために非常に重要な方法であり，これは知的障がい者の場合にはなおさらである。本論文は，知的障がいが障がい者およびその家族の身体的および心理社会的幸福の双方に影響を及ぼす仕組みや，ス
ポーツを行うことによってこれがどのように改善されるかを示している。また，知的障がい者のスポーツに関与している主要３団体─スペシャルオリンピックス，VIRTUS（旧INAS）およびパラリンピック─とその機能および関係性についても説明している。資格や分類方法の簡単な歴史や，現在これらの組織においてそれがどのように運営されて
いるかについても説明している。同論文は，身体的健康の悪化，社会的排除，心理的脆
弱性の点におけるニーズの高まりを提示し，スポーツがこれらの人々やその家族にもたらしうる実証済みのプラス効果を考察している。これには健康の改善，肥満や心疾患な
どの二次的健康リスクの低減，友人関係や社会的包摂の向上，自尊心や主観的幸福などの心理的要素の改善などが含まれる。家族の孤立緩和や共同体意識といった，家族に対する影響も考察している。社会的レベルにおいては，知的障がいを伴うアスリートが参加するパラリンピックなどの大規模なスポーツイベントが，観衆の考え方に影響を及ぼす仕組みについて説明されている。最後に，東京2020パラリンピック競技大会が，知的障がい者に対する社会の姿勢を変化させ，彼らの社会的包摂を促進させる可能性についても考察している。

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