Okay, welcome to the AdaptX podcast where we have conversations with individuals who are building accessible products, advocating for inclusion or excelling in adaptive sports.
Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities, but provide a platform for them to share their experience and hopefully make a more accessible world.
Today we are joined by Dr. Scott McNamara.
Dr. McNamara is an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire within the Department of Kinesiology who teaches physical education and adapted physical education courses.
Dr. McNamara's research interest includes improving awareness of the importance of adapted PE, podcasting, educational leadership, and knowledge dissemination.
Scott, thanks for joining me today.
Thank you for having me and I really like your introduction that we are not speaking on behalf of people with disabilities.
Yeah, it's always been something that's a little tricky when I entered into this education space is like adopting the growth mindset of always learning through these podcast episodes and learning from conversations, but then being the quote unquote authority figure disseminating the information.
So it's been tricky because I fully respect the lived experience portion and I try to bring that as well as my anecdotal experience.
As a fellow podcaster, because I have a podcast as well, What's New in Adapted Physical Education plug, but it's I would say a difficult thing to navigate.
So I like that you're kind of being forefront about it about trying to be this quote unquote authority figure.
That's great. Yeah, thank you.
Can you tell us a bit about your background and maybe when you first became interested in adaptive PE.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I have a background in adaptive physical education and I came up I grew up in Detroit, Michigan is where I'm originally from. And I had a brother with a disability. It's 10 years younger than me, and I would kind of accompany my mom to IEP meetings and stuff like that.
And, you know, I started getting involved in some different physical activity programs as well around disability or somewhat in the same time period, early college.
And then I was actually getting my bachelor's in special education, and there was this awesome opportunity that appeared at the end of my program which was a master's a fully funded master's program, which I'm able to now pay forward because I have that same master's grant now.
And that kind of changed my career trajectory completely when I got into that and I learned all about adaptive physical education adaptive physical activity.
And then eventually, I went with my mentor at Wayne State Dr. Susanna Dillon to Texas Women's University, which I my very, very bare office that is currently like being whatever renovated.
I have a whatever Texas Women's University, which is one of the birthplaces or like we call it like the grandmother of adaptive physical education.
It's had a PhD program for about 50 years or more now, and a very successful line of people that have come out of that program so I came out of that so kind of a little bit about I guess how I came into the field.
Yeah, I know one of your papers talks about attitudinal beliefs towards adaptive P kind of being related to exposure to disabilities.
Understanding of terminology being related to exposure.
So my first introduction to disability was special Olympics in high school.
Prior to that I had no exposure to disability it wasn't even on my radar and I was immediately hooked.
Do you see in your master's program, people entering it without any introduction to disability, or do you in your kind of experience you always see people having some sort of affiliation.
So we have a, so we have a brand new master's program and adapted physical education and we got funding for it as well so we got a large grant from the Office of Special Education program so it's kind of brand new I have.
We're still like we haven't officially launched until the fall so we have about.
We have a good amount of applicants already so I'm kind of seeing who's coming in now. And I've been around these programs for a long time. I would say, most of them have have had some experience so if they come through a traditional physical education curriculum
in their undergrad program, almost all of them across the US are going to have that one course and adapted physical education. That's generally what is in the PE programs now.
And there's a reason for that many states do not have a state endorsement for adaptive physical education so any PE teacher can teach it, and what they, how they get around that because most other like areas around disability and teaching disability.
You have a master's or something like that but the way they get around that as states often say that that class suffices to allow them.
There are about 1314 states in the US that do require a state or a specific adaptive physical education licensure or endorsement to teach adaptive physical education but so most most students go through these programs they have one course.
Sometimes those courses have a lab component. Mine does where they're going to be working with people with disabilities.
Young adults with disabilities and doing physical activity programming for them. It's a pretty common way that students are being exposed. And so I teach the undergrad and the graduate level course of that so my undergrads are often being first exposed to disability in that way, which I think is a unique way.
I teach all of them, so I and then some programs and ours included, we might get some students from like exercise science and such into these programs. I would say when I've worked around that group which is not as frequent sometimes it is.
They have haven't had as much exposure around disability.
And again that one class isn't always a lot of exposure either. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say because I think it's pretty clear in the literature that traditional teachers don't feel adequately ready to support individuals with disabilities in the classroom so if it's pretty clear that one
course isn't enough. Do you think there's going to be a trend towards prioritizing inclusion more in the undergraduate PE curriculum.
I think we should talk about inclusion separately because I don't, I don't conceive them as the same thing, because adapted physical education is a special education service.
And I can I can define how I view inclusion in a second as well but do I think it's a trend. Maybe.
This grant that I received and is about 40 some years old and it actually comes with the inception of special education laws and such, which first came into place in 1975.
You know, and I think that yes you're absolutely right like as far as what we hear around physical education and disabilities that physical educators often feel under equipped, overwhelmed, don't don't have the resources, don't have the support.
They don't always know where to go and there's a lot of reasons for that, as well as we also know that physical education sometimes is called been called quote unquote a dumping ground for people with disabilities, which is kind of the ideas that students
with disabilities might be like self contained classes all day and have little to no interaction with their, their peers without disability.
And then they just put them in PE as a kind of a social like the IP team or parents or teachers, they'll put them in PE without any kind of talking with the PE teacher and like that and they'll put them in there just because they view that as, hey, they're going to get some socialization in there, but,
you know, that can be overwhelming when you know the PE teacher doesn't have they already have maybe bigger class sizes than everyone else. They don't have the background knowledge or support and PE is off, you know, although yes there's some great socializing that can occur.
You know, under the wrong circumstances are not, you know, great circumstances like, you know, the bodies put on display, where you know so you're moving and maybe if you move a little differently.
You know that can be a place for bullying to occur or feeling feeling lonely or feeling ridiculed, as well as you know there might be some spots in physical education that there's less supervision than in others such as like in the locker room.
So, I would say that integrated settings are cannot be good for them but for people with disabilities, but at the same time, PE teachers are often kind of coming in pretty ill equipped to be that first place that they're that they're supposed to be you know integrated into non disabled settings.
So does that dumping ground, kind of summarize the fact that PE as a whole is kind of undervalued compared to other academic subjects.
Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah it's a physical education has been, you know, very much in the literature and probably like just like our own experiences like very much marginalized in a lot of different ways. And that goes to like you know how it's discussed in the media or movies you know it's often like a, you know,
a dumb jock kind of setting and what we know throwing out the dodgeballs or whatever it might be so the like learning value of it's very low the idea of the teacher as an actual teacher is often low we call it gym class which is a setting instead of the curriculum
and so you know there's lots of ways, and the interesting concept that's been pushed a little bit the last few years is that it's a duly marginalized adapted physical education is in the idea that it's, you know, special education and physical education.
So it's like these two areas that often have been in different ways kind of marginalized in the educational system. I know in one of your papers that you shared with me that you published last year you kind of showed that, like, admins are supposed to oversee these programs
but then admins have no experience with AP so it's like why are they the ones that are dictating things and then teachers feel like those admins are kind of deterring them from doing what they need to do. What makes a healthy educational ecosystem in a school setting between
admins, AP, traditional PE. Thanks for reading my papers. Yeah, yeah so and that's been pretty not outlook that is just physical education and school administrators in general.
We did a scoping review a few years ago on and that's like kind of just seeing all like what's the literature out there, and over like a 20 year period just in physical education and then school administrators educational leadership.
And I think we found about 30 articles over a 20 year period, which maybe that sounds like a lot but like it's really not, it's like, you know, and they're all focused on different things so we don't totally understand, like, how to answer that question and that's
just in physical education not even adapted physical education and school administrators, like what is a healthy environment look like what is a good relationship, look like what we do know is that those administrators are key and essential
to having a productive physical education class curriculum, as well as teachers. We know that that relationship is really crucial.
But we don't still fully understand their views and value system around physical education, what the literature suggests is that it's not great that their understanding of physical education and adapted physical education and special education.
Uh huh, is often not great, you know, and with what we do know though is they might be a little bit more keyed in on maybe special education or physical education.
And that's where we can kind of communicate with them. But I would say a healthy place is where there's a lot of collaboration occurring.
The best practice around adaptive physical education is that they're collaborating with the IEP team, and a best practice within there is that they might even create a motor team, where everyone that's working in the motor realm, like the occupational
therapist the physical therapist, and the AP teacher, and sometimes maybe like a speech and language pathologist are all working together just on the motor aspect of it.
That's sadly not a common trend, but it is in certain places. And that's a really great place where like really great strategies and such can kind of happen and collaboration.
I would also say just, yeah, like I mean, when we did interviews with AP teachers, we would find that, you know, we asked them, how does your administrator support you?
And some of them would laugh or, you know, ask us, what do you mean? And like, you know, like that's telling.
Some of them told us they'd never been evaluated by their school administrator or administrators never been in their gymnasium within a 30 year period.
You know, so those experiences devalue the field, but they also make the teachers, A, not have accountability, and B, just kind of feel like, yeah, pretty low on the totem pole.
And then I think those are some like kind of quotes from those papers as feeling low on the totem pole, you know, or not being invited to holiday parties, not walking into the schools because maybe they're in multiple schools and the administrator is not knowing their names.
Now, those are all examples of what poorer experiences are like.
So I would say the opposite of all those is having a meaningful relationship, being invited to things, you know, having like feeling like, you know, your administrators trying to get to know your curriculum, your standards, holding, evaluating you, holding you accountable, trying to like work with you.
You know, I do, I think that administrators are really, really vital to that.
There are positive experiences I've also heard, and often it's around administrators that are very supportive.
You know, and our asking questions are evaluating are coming from a place of wanting to learn more and support with that too.
You know, I don't know if it's always the chicken or the egg comes first, but it seems like those places where there's really positive experiences.
It's there's often really good APP teachers there.
And I don't know, you know, that's again the chicken or the egg. Is it that the APP teachers there and it's great. So the administrators, you know, identifies a really good teacher and then is putting time and effort into it.
Or, and or is it, are they really great because the administrators there have cultivated an atmosphere culture that that allows, you know, effective teachers to be there.
Those different parts of the motor team so APP PT OT. Sometimes I'll get high school students that will ask me about, like my career path so I started with special ed decided about halfway through university that I wanted to open my gym for my special
Olympics athletes and then spent a few years trying to figure out how to do that and there wasn't really a model to follow there wasn't really a specific degree that was going to be a prerequisite for getting me there.
And a large part of why my gym might have been successful from the onset was because I spent so many years with special Olympics and best buddies kind of building up a community but people will often like ask me what they should major in when they go to college, and I'm like,
I don't know how much the major, they're like I want to do what you do like, and like, oh, that's great. But I'm not sure exactly how much the major, like, gets you there so.
So that's not to say it's not important. If someone is interested in working with individuals with disabilities in a physically active environment. Would you have any specific recommendations for them in terms of a PE PT OT obviously they're vastly different.
But are there advantages to one cons to one. Yeah, I mean, they're all the above, I would recommend people trying to, you know, get their degrees and such in these areas I do hear what you say, especially in something like what you're doing that there's not really a great,
this degree gets you there I mean probably a general exercise science degree would be the best route for someone like us, if someone's coming to me and then advocating that they, you know, they do some, maybe ACSM kind of certifications,
like inclusive fitness trainer, the autism exercise connection, those would be kind of areas I would kind of push them, then you get into like so then that's like a different realm than mine in the way that there's a lot of certifications a lot of like licensures that we need.
So you know you go into any of those that you just mentioned, you need a license which means you have to get the certain degrees. With that and I work really closely with the OT department here I used to work a lot with the PTs and OTs in my school,
I worked in the school setting. I would say that, you know, I think that I think that there's just, there's a lot of options, not to say one is better than the other.
I think there's more overlap with PT and APE than sometimes with OT and the others. OT is kind of really broad, focuses on vocational areas and sensory integration often, and sometimes within a physical activity setting, where you know, PTs very much on that gross motor skill,
OT is very much on the fine motor skill, and APE puts it all into a curriculum space, where we're teaching a curriculum, and PTs and OTs are related service personnel in the school settings, meaning they're often trying to provide the student, the prerequisite skills
and abilities, so they can access the curriculum, where we are adapting a curriculum to meet the child's needs. They, we should ideally all be like working together quite a bit. I think you know, they're all great places to kind of move your career.
I think there's obviously differences in areas of focus and specialty, there's time as well. The APE track is going to be the least time intensive out of all those other tracks. I think most PTs are now also having to get a doctorate.
I think I've heard that the OT, and I don't want to speak out of turn because I don't, these are not my areas, but I believe they're, you know, that's a trend in their field as well to go for that doctorate, but I think it's important that we're all working together.
Yeah.
So, a topic that we've talked about over the last few years, usually when I have something come up and I kind of want to vet some of my thought process as I've reached out to you. So, mentioned earlier, are PE teachers adequately knowledgeable about disabilities and inclusion and you said the two are separate. So, how do you define inclusion?
Yeah, well I just, and I think there's been Justin Hagel, who is a good friend, colleague of mine, and also somebody I really look up to. He's written extensively on inclusion. And I really, I really subscribe to how he's kind of framed it.
And he didn't create that idea of how he frames it either. There's disability scholars, disability study scholars that have kind of created this about and discussed it. And he has a great paper called the inclusion illusion.
And I would advocate anyone to read it. And the inclusion illusion is the idea is that we often call inclusion something that it's not, and we're often calling it inclusion to make ourselves feel better versus to actually benefit people with disabilities.
And so, we often refer to inclusion as simply people with and without disabilities being in the same space as each other. But, you know, and I think that can be either, you know, an integrated space, maybe sometimes an accessible space.
And inclusion, I can see it as, and again, many scholars have kind of subscribed to this idea of that it's a sense of belonging and acceptance. And that you can have those in a variety of settings.
And then also, another idea that's been put forth is that you're on an inclusion spectrum, like so that at any point in time, in any place, we can feel different levels of inclusion based on how we're feeling, our relationships around us, what's being said and done.
And that, you know, at all points, we all of us are at different levels of feeling like an inclusive experience. And so I often, when I discuss inclusion, I'm talking about an inclusive experience, rather than a setting or a service.
And so I often look at it from that. And there's, and in those discussions, we sometimes talk about how the conflation of integration and inclusion potentially can have some harmful effects to people with disabilities.
And that we frame things, again, we call it inclusive because that's framing it as this really positive thing. But then some things are called inclusive, but they might not be doing, they might be pushing more ableist norms, which are, you know, discriminatory norms.
But they put that label on it to kind of mask themselves as that, and really we're just talking about integration.
You know, I won't name the tool, but there's a tool in physical education that I think has some of this and it's somewhat new and it has the word inclusion in it.
It says it's measuring inclusion, yet all it's like it's asking for is like, do students with and without disabilities stand in line together?
Literally one of the things, are they getting water together or like the drinking fountains? I think is one of them.
And there's other ones around, yeah, like their interaction with one another. Well, and then you're rating whether inclusion is occurring.
Well, you know, that to me, just having people stand in line together doesn't mean really anything.
I would think that should be taken for granted if they want to be in the same room together, you know, especially when I view it as an experience because that says nothing to me.
And so I would actually say, and then on the other end, a teacher would take that, might not have a lot of experience in inclusion or disability or adaptive physical education.
Take that to their measurement tool and say, I have an inclusion, inclusive PE experience or inclusion PE class occurring, so I don't need to do anything different.
And so that also can be how, you know, when we label it like that, if the goal is an inclusion, which is maybe just merely integration, people will do that and then think that they're doing everything and they don't need to do more.
Yeah, I'm familiar with that scale. So I guess you would more so be looking at interviewing the students themselves to see how they perceive their experience and how they feel a sense of belonging and acceptance within that environment.
I think that's really important. You know, I don't want to go on on that scale, but like there's good things in that scale as well that talk about like different like differentiation and accommodations and equipment adaptations and all that.
You know, those are ways to also look at how well are we providing in our services. But in my view, when we're talking about inclusion explicitly, I think it's really important, yes, to hear the voices because there's really no other way to understand their experiences.
Because if I'm trying to understand their experiences, I can't do that merely by looking around the room.
So if that's what we actually want to do, and there's times that we like that's hard to do, that's time consuming. So maybe sometimes we do want to just do a checklist of what am I doing to provide differentiated instruction, accommodations and modifications, which I know based on literature are necessary to have better outcomes.
It's pretty similar to accessibility, I suppose, where something can be physically accessible, but that doesn't mean that the individual accessing the environment is enjoying the experience.
So we kind of differentiate between accessibility and usability, I suppose, like accessible, you can get into the building but usable you actually enjoy the experience and it's catered to your needs and it supports your needs.
So it's that like, yeah, multidisciplinary aspect of accessibility.
So in the sense of like, inclusion is a sense of belonging and acceptance. So does inclusion in that way not really identify the presence of a disability.
No, I don't think that that has to do with, you know, I think you can frame disability in a lot of ways. And I think that, you know, I kind of come from like an embodied perspective that that, you know, and I come from a variety of like a human rights lens of disability that
disability is a can be conceptualized as a community, a civil rights group with their own like shared experiences and culture. I also think that it can be something that's embodied and experienced through the body around disability, but you know I don't really generally
don't ascribe from a medical model where we would kind of like look at it from a deficit based I do think that models of disability are used based on context though so I don't think that there's like a never on a lot of this stuff but, but yeah so like I don't think that inclusion
inclusion like I think you can be anybody with any kind of background and have an inclusive experience now. What the like what we know is that often, you know, disabled children or children with disabilities are, you know, not having inclusive experiences from the literature
that's what they're saying. At the same time, I'm not always sure if like they're if children, non disabled children are not having inclusive, I haven't seen the literature on that. It's actually something I've wondered, who's having these inclusive experiences.
Because again, I can't view them, somebody has to voice them. And we're all on that so no I don't I don't see disability as being would not preclude somebody. It's rather the environment and their experiences in that environment around disability so I think I think children
with disabilities can have inclusive experiences.
Not but it has to be you know an environment and a setting that's going to allow them to have inclusive experiences.
I would love if you could kind of critique my gym.
And my thought process I guess in terms of how I set it up so like when I first started unified sports through Special Olympics was my, my first idea so it was a volunteer exercising or playing a sport alongside an athlete with a disability and that was overwhelmingly
positive, obviously it was incredibly positive in my life in terms of influencing my career path so we started with a few classes a week had some high school athletes who are training with us for their own sport, hang out after their workouts, stay for those classes
support the athletes who needed help. Over time, we've moved a little bit towards like a semi private model, where, regardless of whether you have a disability or not you have a program written for you.
That allowed people to really train at any time of the day, because they're all getting a pretty similar service in terms of everyone is getting coached, whether you're playing a collegiate sport or whether you're just trying to become healthier and you have a diagnosis.
So, with that, it's removed some of the barriers of like, you can only train Mondays and Thursdays at 5pm like you're able to access the gym at whatever is most convenient to you so to me that was a step towards being more inclusive, people could dictate what
they felt most welcomed or most comfortable in. If you want to go to a couple sessions a week, we have two sessions a week where it ends up being a lot of our athletes with disabilities. If you want to go to those sessions, they're often your classmates you maybe used to
being in school with them you've both aged out and you want to stay in touch with those friends, you can go to that session if you'd rather train with the high schoolers if you'd rather train with the quote unquote neurotypical adults you can go there.
So where, I guess, maybe just with that global view of our business model.
Do you identify any issues or how would I improve it?
I don't. I, what I've I described to from my philosophical standpoint is options. And I push, like I, with my class. One of the first days, I asked everyone in there you know how many sports they played and all that, and I get a big big, you know, like, big
array of them, and, and a lot and I had a lot of people that used to play a lot of sports and do a lot of different physical activities. What we know is that people with disabilities often have much more narrow physical activity kind of areas that they can, they can
participate in. And even when they do Special Olympics it's like, well, we're doing basketball this season you know it's like where I can go and go to like, you know, within 10 miles my house I can do pickleball tennis, like all these different things I can do either
or as a group or whatever.
And I can self-select that.
So I think the more options that we have,
and also with that, like I can do those in a men's league,
I can do them in a co-ed league,
I can do like, you know, different ages,
like there's all these kind of like options that I have.
So I, you know, I advocate for autonomous,
self-autonomous where students,
like people can select their own things.
So I think the more opportunities for them to do that
is good, you know, so I don't really have a critique
on your model, I think it's a good model.
I think, I just think that we should have, like, you know,
we should have, like, you know,
if they wanna go to their local YMCA,
that should be accessible as well.
Like they should have different,
like they should have any option that I have,
is, you know, we should have.
Yeah, yeah, those, obviously, yeah, that's essential,
but at the end of the day, there are barriers.
Someone with Down syndrome can't just go play pickleball
with you as successfully,
unless there's some level of support.
They can, they can some, like many times they can,
it's just there's often, you know, and it does change,
like, yes, there's like, there's motor skill things,
there's health things, but generally a lot of those things
are attitudinal, you know, structural issues
that either they don't feel like they're welcome there,
or, you know, or they really aren't welcome there,
you know, and those things.
So yes, but I think that, like, you know,
I think that those settings are good for them, you know,
and you asked a question earlier about inclusion,
and you might have asked this before the podcast started,
I can't remember, but you asked a question about, like,
can inclusion happen in segregated settings?
Which is maybe a little bit what you're getting at too,
with this, and I believe you can have inclusion,
because I see it as a sense of belonging and acceptance.
So I think you can, like, I think that,
like, I think in a way there's a little bit of a problem
that we often do, again, from, I think,
underlying ableist norms,
is that we say that a disabled context or setting
where people with disabilities
are interacting with each other is less than settings
that are predominantly for non-disabled groups.
And I think in just that way, like, and again, options,
options, options, options I should have,
and if that disabled setting, that group,
that setting for disabled people or people with disabilities
has things that are less than or othering,
less resources, then that's not equitable.
But if they're in equitable settings
and they're doing things that they enjoy,
they're in a community that they enjoy,
like, why is the presence of non-disabled people...
Exactly, yeah, and again, I'm not saying that,
I think when I say these things,
sometimes people think that I'm pushing against,
you know, having integrated settings.
I'm not whatsoever, and I think many times
that's what people want, people with and without disabilities
want to be in integrated settings.
That's they don't identify with the disability community,
you know, those are things that they want.
But what I philosophically move towards
is freedom of choice and autonomy over those choices.
And, you know, if I think a lot of people
in a lot of different communities
self-select into participating in something
that they ascribe to as their community.
And so with that, I then see zero issue of youth,
like, you know, Paralympics could be one of these,
although I think there's problems around that as well,
because Paralympians don't, you know,
I think there's a little bit of like a community,
they're often like, you know,
they might want to be Olympians or conceived as Olympians,
and they are Olympians,
but sometimes they're othered into this category.
But anyways, I think that if you want to play that,
like be a Paralympian or do disability sports
in your community with other people with disabilities,
like that makes sense and like that's fine.
You know, I think it's self-selection into those things
is like, and not having barriers
because like you can't participate in my thing.
We want people to have the ability and accessibility
such as I have to like, you know,
participate in a huge multitude of activities
and physical activities that I self-selected, you know,
so if I join a men's league,
I can have an inclusive experience in there
and then nobody's judging me for that, you know,
but again, if we're only allowed to go
into disability settings, because we've said
that's only place that you're allowed to be,
that's problematic as well.
Yeah, my ability or my interest in understanding this
is not to critique anyone's model, it's to refine my own
and if I'm gonna be in a position to teach other people
how to promote inclusion of individuals with disabilities
in a fitness environment, I wanna make sure it's aligned
with what Justin is writing about,
what your thought process is, what the literature says,
what the lived experiences of those with disability says.
So like I fully agree with the options thing,
that's kinda over the last couple of years,
it might've even been a conversation with you
a few years ago that kinda pointed me in that direction
from like disability classes, non-disability classes,
et cetera, to the point of like,
how can anyone seamlessly coexist in this environment?
But if options is kinda the North Star,
a program that only supports disabilities
doesn't give you the option to train in other environments.
And so it's maybe also, cause like sometimes nonprofits
have like a narrow mission, like our mission
is to create environments for people with disabilities
to train, we function as a for-profit,
so it's not refined in that way, but yeah.
Yeah, but at the same time, no, I understand,
but I think at the same time, like, you know,
you're one, I don't think what you're doing alone
is problematic, I think what might be problematic
is that there's no maybe other options out there,
like you know, you're one group, you're one avenue, right?
Like if is like, but you know, if you're doing that
and there's all these other options available,
then there's really no problem,
but I think the issue is not like just your group really,
it's that there's no options.
And you know, and then really like in fitness settings,
like in fitness centers, it's ridiculous to think that,
you know, especially like a YMCA,
which are like their whole missions around, you know,
physical activity and healthy communities
that they're not accessible to everyone.
That should be like an avenue where everyone, you know,
everything's accessible for everyone.
But, and again, much of it's just attitudinal
or you know, very, very simple equipment adaptations.
That's the variety, but then, you know, training and such,
and you might want very specific training to, you know,
specific to you and your disability,
because then at that point,
you're really getting into an exercise science world
and maybe there are things about your body
that's different that you want someone
with that expertise to train you.
I, you know, I think people do that type of stuff
around other groups that they're ascribed to all the time.
I really just think it's really about, yeah, again, options.
Like what is the, like, we want to open doors
and not shut them.
So I don't see, anyways, I don't see a big issue
with having a disability specific program,
as long as, you know, there's other programs
that are out there.
And I'm talking.
The only thing that, the only thing that that person,
that business owner can control is their program.
Exactly, yeah.
So should they have some sort of responsibility
to create those options or should they just be like,
oh, there's other options out there, that's sufficient?
I mean, I am, my guess is most of these kind of groups
are more mon-pa that we're talking about.
Like I can, I think I can advocate for a YMCA again,
or LA Fitness or something like that to have,
I think they need to do better because they're massive,
you know, and they have the resources
and the ability to really do that.
I think when you're talking about like, you know,
mon-pa kind of fitness centers, I think my critique's
gonna be a lot lower, not that there wouldn't be one
in a very split, like, you know, whatever from one to one.
But, you know, I think that, yeah, I think,
I think that they're, what their options are
are gonna be much more narrow.
So I think it's okay to have more narrow options.
I'm part of, part of an inclusive health coalition,
which is like all the New Hampshire YMCAs
and then a couple of representatives from UNH
and Crotch and Mountain and stuff.
And what we're trying to figure out, I guess,
is exactly what you said, like why,
what can the Y's do to better support people
with disabilities?
Seems like some of the comments are like,
oh, we'll have some dayhab programs,
some adult service programs come in and use our facilities,
but they're not really getting services.
They're just maybe walking on a treadmill
or some of the people are just sitting,
well, a couple other people work out.
So it's like how, what I'm, my portion of it
is hopefully educating some of the YMCA staff
on how to train specific disabilities more effectively
so they can better support clients with disabilities
that come into the YMCAs,
but they have a different model than me.
They have a great model in that accessible price point,
hopefully accessible layouts.
So that's why it's been, it's been a fun group to work with,
but there's definitely improvements
and they understand that there's improvements to be made
to be more inclusive and welcoming.
I'm just looking up a paper real quick
as we talk about this because I want to get the facts right.
But yeah, I definitely see that as like a really bad,
a really big issue is like more in that kind of sphere
than I think the mon-pot, because again,
I think that if you want,
like especially something like what you do,
and you probably have some practical experience
in exercise and physical activity, training,
specific, specific disabilities.
And if you want that, like why shouldn't you have that option?
But if you go to the YMCA,
I think a lot of times people with disabilities
are turned away at that avenue, maybe not getting a membership,
but like, do you have a fitness trainer that I can work with?
And like then it's like, ugh, you know.
And so there's a paper by Sean Healy that came out in 2022,
and it's called the Gatekeepers to Fitness.
And he did a really, really interesting study
where he emailed to 800 fitness centers across the nation.
And in that, he looked at,
he did like four different types of emails.
He either did like no disability mentioned, vision loss,
spinal cord injury, or being autistic,
and mentioned that within each of the emails
about membership and trainers.
And what he found was that, I'll tell you,
so receiving a positive response
were like 40 to 30 percent less likely for individuals
with vision loss and spinal cord injuries.
Then those without disabilities,
and then it was 60 percent to 40 percent lower
around personal training amongst those same two groups.
Autism was not as profound in this study,
and I'm just reading the abstract right now
because I couldn't remember,
but I found that to be really, really interesting.
So they sent an email and no response or negative responses,
basically, no, we don't do that. We're so much higher in those groups.
And he was emailing the bigger ones,
the bigger things out there that most people are going to be,
that's what most people are going to access.
And do you think those are attitudinal beliefs
that are preventing those larger misunderstandings
of the socioeconomic status and spending power
of people with disabilities or just a genuine disinterest?
I think it's, I don't know, but I think it's a lot of things.
I think it's generally attitudinal and structural.
They might feel that they don't have the capacity to do that.
I think there's nervousness, there's, I don't have training in this.
And some of those are legit.
Like if I don't have any training, so that is an issue.
If I have a person with a spinal cord injury and I have zero training in that,
do I feel comfortable with that?
Well, if I don't, which maybe I shouldn't, how do I even get that training?
So, I mean, those are structural issues, not just attitudinal barriers,
but it's a mix.
Yeah, that's been one of the tricky things with the course that we teach
on adaptive fitness, inclusive fitness, whatever you want to call it,
probably more so adaptive fitness.
But like not pretending to be rehabilitating anyone,
like not pretending to be a physical therapist.
But at the same time, if the only activity that individuals with disabilities
can access is PT, because they're conditioned to believe that disability
is synonymous with injury or they get PT in school,
so they think that they have to go to physical therapy.
If they never get access to a recreation environment,
because all fitness professionals are worried about working with people
with disabilities, then that's not options.
So that's where we kind of identified that education was the place
that we could have the largest impact.
So that's why we've been trying to teach as many people as possible.
But what are the biggest barriers?
What are the biggest barriers to better health and fitness
for people with disabilities?
I mean, in general, it's probably the additudinal and structural,
kind of like we said, those are probably the biggest ones.
I think that oftentimes small adaptations,
if sometimes no adaptations are necessary,
and oftentimes it's that people either feel, like the people with disabilities
or maybe the family member feels like that's not for us,
or those actual systems and powers and places explicitly or implicitly
do put out messages of this is not for you.
And so I think a lot of it is just access and awareness
and at least I think that would go a long way
to addressing those around health and physical activity.
And again, options, like, you know, a lot of people that I know,
they go to the gym, or maybe they do a solo sport,
like swimming or golfing, or maybe they like team sports.
Well, most people without disabilities have options to any one of those things,
any day of the week, and people with disabilities,
even though they might have access to it,
they might not feel it to have access to it
because of a lot of societal barriers that are there.
To date, you've published almost 60 peer-reviewed papers
and given nearly 100 presentations.
What are your current research interests
and what do you kind of hope to work on over the next three to five years, maybe?
Three to five years, wow.
Five to ten.
I would say like, I don't plan out that far.
Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, I do a lot of studies.
I have a few going on right now.
One that I like, well, I'm doing some on like understanding gatekeepers as well
that I really like what's going on.
That's kind of something I'm currently doing.
Like, right before this, I was writing one of the manuscripts for her to start into.
And that's understanding, I often look at, in the school settings,
I look at parents, administrators, PE teachers, special educators,
and not the child as gatekeepers to physical education,
physical activity, and adaptive physical education services.
So I want to understand, like, I think there's been a lot of studies
that looked at one of those groups.
Like, so I've done some on school administrators,
but I'm trying to now look at it as this kind of bigger group
of all these decision makers around adaptive physical education,
understand their values and perspectives,
and why they may or may not be allowing for adaptive physical education services
to be provided, and then the quality as well.
Another one that I've been really, really interested in,
and right now I'm kind of doing it more broadly,
so it's not even really about adaptive physical education,
but it's understanding better the research to practice gap
that we're always talking about in different settings.
And so we just did a study where we surveyed a decent number
of higher ed professionals that teach PE classes,
and then a somewhat similar number of teachers,
and we asked them their definition of research
and where they access research.
And we're still kind of finishing up the analysis phase,
but we did find a statistical significant difference
that had, I think, a small to medium effect size around,
you know, the academics defined research
as like a very kind of empirical systematic way,
and practitioners might be referring to it from a more,
you know, gathering information where, you know,
higher ed people are often talking about like a systematic generalizations,
these things that we see in research papers,
and also where we access it.
So, you know, teachers very rarely are using journals,
probably to nobody's surprise, or textbooks.
Rather, they're using like social media.
But both groups are going to conferences quite a bit,
which is probably where that information can happen.
But I just think that's interesting because it begs the question of like,
if we have different definitions of research,
and then we're talking about research to practice gap,
how, like, we need to address even how we're conceptualizing it
at a very base level.
Because when I say research and then I talk to a teacher,
they might be thinking I'm talking about a different type of research
than, and vice versa.
So that's something that I've been kind of ingrained in a little bit as of recent.
That was kind of going to be my question,
and you referred to it as the research to practice gap there.
So how can you make sure that these findings
or an ever evolving definition of inclusion, accessibility,
how can you make sure it is implemented into practice as well?
I think, you know, I don't know.
These questions you're asking me, they're great questions.
I don't always have the best answer, but I would say try.
I'd say talk to, I think like an important thing is humility
in these conversations from my standpoint as a professor.
I hate when I see professors kind of stand up with a level of authority
or expertise, I think, can be used in that vein of like, you know,
as you said at the beginning, like, we are trying to understand
lived experiences of people and such.
And so I think humility is really important in how we do that communication
and that we are learning from one another as well.
So it shouldn't just be a one directional way that we're communicating either,
which I think often it is.
So it's a two way communication because maybe I need to learn
how they're conceptualizing research as well.
Like maybe my view of research is more narrow than it needs to be.
And then I think, I think like forums like this podcasting,
I don't see an issue with social media as long as there's some
vetting of the information that's going through.
So I think, yeah, I think accessible things.
I would go with the same idea I was pushing before as options.
So how can I provide different options of knowledge?
That's important.
You know, that's like if research articles are only in journals,
we know that that research practice gap is going to persist.
So then what are the options?
And I think there's still a place for those journals where we can kind of get really,
you know, nitty gritty into language and methodology and all that.
Obviously, but like how do we then disseminate that?
What are all these different options maybe that we can provide
that information such as podcasting?
You just received a large grant to develop this one year masters and AP program at UNH.
Hopefully I'm not miss articulating that.
But what what do you think is going to be superior about that program to other APs?
Or what do you what do you hope it does differently than other programs?
I mean, I. I don't even know if I would compare myself right now to other programs.
I think that in general, so we're the only funded master's program, fully funded,
although the University of Virginia has a more unique funding and more unique program.
But our closest geographical place would be in the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
sorry, La Crosse, which is so that's, you know, quite far away from us geographically.
So we do have funding.
And with that funding, we have obligations to our students or our students have obligations.
So they have to work about 80 to 100 hours in the field outside of their coursework a semester.
They're going to go to conferences.
They're going to present at conferences.
So I think those things will make it unique in how involved they are in the field
where they're going to be like really teaching.
They're going to be really engaged in it.
And I also think that I think that in general, we're going to have them engaged in a good level of research
and engaging in reading like primary source literature as well as engaging a little bit of research.
So I think those things would make us a little bit more unique.
You know, but I think that there's several quality AP programs
and we just have to get people to take them because we have such a severe need of AP teachers in this region, especially.
How do you gauge the efficacy of an educational curriculum?
It's something that I've been trying to figure out is how I measure whether the course that we teach
is both adequate and applied and comprehensive, I suppose.
I think that's hard.
Yes, you're asking hard questions.
I mean, I would just say, I don't know.
I think obviously we get student feedback, which is a good kind of indicator
or at least a level of acceptability of what you're teaching.
So what are the students feedback?
I've also gotten assignments and stuff and gotten asked to students like kind of kind of cohort of students
and got a little focus group on those things to help myself.
But, you know, I think as far as the outcomes go, you know, I think there's job placement outcomes that we can look at.
Are they getting in the field?
We also like we've surveyed some of our alumni in our undergrad program about, you know, their experience and such.
But I think those things are hard.
I think you also have to reflect a lot.
I think that's probably the number one thing is engage and learn.
You know, I'm a podcaster as well.
And one of the things that I found is that I started mine a long time ago at the when these things were quite novel.
And I found that doing what you're doing right now, which is engaging with people, preparing questions,
was this tremendous professional development experience that I didn't I think I didn't quite understand I was getting myself into at the beginning.
So I think to me, like engaging with colleagues, with peers, with, you know, people in different worlds
and kind of having these conversations is really vital to your growth and then being able to reflect on your curriculum.
And then, you know, maybe how well like for me, how well does it align with our national APENS, Adapted Physical Education National Standards.
But again, that's a reflective process of kind of asking yourself and re-reviewing your syllabi and all of that.
So I think, you know, there's no clear answer on some of that.
Yeah, it's and maybe they're hard questions, but they're just things that I'm hoping selfishly to to use to improve what I'm doing.
And so you've been doing the podcasting for a lot longer.
What are what makes a what makes a good podcast? What makes a effective educational podcast?
I think a good one is a good personality to go with it, like with your guest.
I think stories are good.
I don't know if I've given a lot of stories, I've given like a lot of like conceptual things.
I actually would say that I really like doing big picture ones as well, like where it's like like why or like the philosophy of it.
And usually when I enjoy one a lot, the viewers usually really like it, too.
And then, yeah, I don't know. I think I think interesting guest is like and then interesting topics.
And I think I think difficult or ambiguous questions are good. You kind of get really into like the sphere of like kind of like what is the purpose of all this stuff?
I I look at the purpose of podcast and there's I've done a little bit of literature on this as well.
The purpose to me about podcasting is more about perspective changing or understanding different perspectives or learning the basics about a new topic.
I don't think that these types of podcasts are great for like I wouldn't say listen to like, you know, my podcast, three of my podcasts.
So you can be prepared to take the Ape Inns exam.
Like it's more about reflecting, understanding different ways to view things, challenging yourself.
And so a podcast kind of helps propel that.
I think it can lead to insightful conversations and be educational.
Yeah, I think sometimes I'm vetting whether the questions I'm asking are for myself or for my audience or.
Yeah, just like. After every episode, almost I usually put stuff in a in a Google doc that's just tentatively named like fictions and fallacies of inclusion.
And it's like I have I have my preconceived notions and then if a guest shares something that contradicts that, I make note of it.
Or if it's a lens that I hadn't looked at a problem through, I'll add it and I'll reconsider that.
So I think if I know who I want my audience to be,
which is fitness professionals who want to create more inclusive environments.
And if I'm trying to tackle the same problem, then I feel like being somewhat selfish in terms of the questions I ask and the outcomes that I'm intending will indirectly benefit them as well.
If that makes sense. Yeah, I think I think it does.
I think I think, you know, and I think I think being authentic is really, really, really important to podcasting, like letting yourself kind of be you.
And really letting your views kind of, you know, and values and experiences kind of come through this, you know.
And I I don't know if I'm doing a great job of it.
I think that's the other thing about podcasting is we're all kind of stumbling through it.
Yeah, it's funny. My early episodes.
I mean, my favorite podcast to listen to is someone named Lex Friedman.
And the episodes often are three or four hours long.
And they're often topics I have zero knowledge about.
But for some reason, like feeling like I'm in the room with him talking to an MIT scientist, they're talking to these very well accomplished people like you feel smarter just by just by association.
So some of my best some of my best episodes, at least from my perspective and kind of what I've heard of been conversations with professors and people who are teaching me.
So then I feel like the listener can feel like they're just like in that learning as well.
Like you might not be able to get a degree from UNH, but hopefully I can bring some of the stuff that you share in your classes to people.
They want a degree. We do have a fully funded master's program.
So you know, accepting about seven to ten students a year.
So feel free to register.
The last little prompt that we've asked pretty much every guest is and maybe it's too far reaching of a question.
But what do you think needs to be done to make fitness more accessible for people with disabilities?
I think I think knowledge dissemination, educational awareness is good.
I think a really big thing in our field, because I do think, you know, I identify as somebody in like the adaptive physical activity realm of research and knowledge base.
We need more representation of people with disabilities or disabled persons in those spaces.
And I kind of think in all those spaces, so like in academia, like we're, you know, generally like the people when you look around at these conferences, including myself,
it's mostly non disabled people talking about disabled people.
And then I think in the same context of when you go to like when you're going to fitness centers,
like that would be really ideal, too, is like, how do we put like people with disabilities in fitness centers at like as positions of authority slash,
you know, within those things and then how like how do we enable like enable their expertise and, you know, have representation and all those.
And then in addition, like when we think about like sport and physical, like people that when we think of stars and people like that,
like we able to conceive or think of specific people with disabilities in those spaces,
I think also representation in that way kind of allows us to have a new insight around disability and physical activity,
but also makes those things seem more possible to everybody when we have those when we have, you know, just representation.
Well, Scott, thank you for joining me today.
We'll make sure we include some of the links to UNH's recently conceived five year or one year adapted PE program if anyone's interested in that.
I'll include some links to your podcast as well.
I've enjoyed listening to them over the years.
There are some topics that I have listed out here that we could have dove into as well.
But it was a great conversation as as all of our previous ones have been.
And a lot of times it was just like over the last few years, I was like, oh, that's a had a great conversation with someone.
I wish I had recorded it.
And so now the podcast is like, oh, now I can record it and go back to it.
So thanks again for your time and look forward to hopefully staying in touch over the years.
All right. Thank you very much for having me.
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