All right, welcome to the AdaptX Podcast where we have conversations with individuals who
are building accessible businesses, advocating for inclusion or excelling in adaptive sports.
Our intention is never to speak on behalf of those with disabilities, but provide a
platform to share insights into a more accessible world.
Today we are joined by Dr. Hayley Kavanagh.
She is currently working in the role of research and developmental coordinator for the Young
Athletes Program with Special Olympics Ireland, designing and implementing a coach-led fundamental
movement skill intervention.
She previously undertook the role of health and wellbeing coordinator for the organization,
increasing their health education program reach by 300%.
Her doctoral studies at Dublin City University focused on fundamental movement skill proficiency
in children with intellectual disabilities.
Hayley, thank you for joining me today.
Thanks so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
I want to quickly mention for our listeners in the US, which is most of our audience,
that Hayley might refer to FMS as the fundamental movement skills.
Our fitness professionals in the States might be familiar with that abbreviation as functional
movement screen, but two very different assessments and objectives.
Throughout the episode, I'll let you clarify what that consists of and how it's measured.
For me personally, I had a very formative experience with Special Olympics.
It was my first introduction to disability at 15 years old.
Over the last, I guess, half of my life, the last 15 years has revolved around inclusion
and sport and fitness.
Did you have a unique experience that initially influenced this career path?
Yeah, absolutely.
In Ireland, we have our final year exams in high school called the Leaving Certificate.
At that time, everyone's trying to compete to get as many points as possible to get a
college degree or course that you want to attend.
I knew I wanted to work somewhere in the health and science space, but I wasn't 100% sure
what I wanted to do.
I did really well, but the course that I got given then was Sports, Science and Health
at Dublin City University.
At the time, I was a bit disappointed with how I performed, even though overall it would
be deemed a good score.
I said, look, I'll go in, I'll try sports science, and I can do physiotherapy afterwards
if I want to or if I need to.
So I went in and in the first year, we covered a topic called Adapted Physical Activity.
It was the first time that I'd ever heard of that phrase.
It was the first time that I'd ever even heard of the concept of sports and physical
activity for people with disabilities.
I went up to my lecturer and said, how do I get involved in this area?
It just really, really intrigued me.
She said, go and volunteer with your local Special Olympics club.
So having no knowledge in basketball or prior experience, I went down to my local club and
I was assistant coaching and just helping out with children who were learning to play
basketball for Special Olympics.
Then I was there for about a year or two and they were rolling out a new program called
Young Athletes, which was for children with ID aged 4 to 12 years.
I kind of took a lead role on that program and rolling it out within the club setting.
I really, really enjoyed it.
I was volunteering then right up until COVID hit really, and then we kind of went online
for a bit.
So that's how my love for this area really grew.
And again, during college, we had the opportunity to do a placement, like a six month work experience.
So I chose, and again, we had to interview and it was quite competitive, but I had the
opportunity to work at an intellectual disability service.
So in their gym and swim programs.
And that organization is called Stewart's Care.
So again, it was a totally different side.
This time it was adults that we were getting to work with for the first time and just seeing
how much sport and physical activity meant for them.
During that time period of the placement as well, there was a few people who were coming
into the gym who were users of motorized wheelchairs.
And one guy in particular had said to me that he had an acquired intellectual disability
and he remembered what it was like to play football before he then was a motorized wheelchair
user.
So I got my thinking cap on and I remember again, we had learned about power chair football
and I think our lecturer had told us about boxes that you could put on the front of the
chair.
So that's what we went out and did.
And we brought plastic boxes, cable tie them to the front of the motorized wheelchairs,
got really large footballs and we started Ireland's first intellectual disability power
chair football team.
So that was really exciting.
And we did a big fundraiser and actually raised money for proper equipment and actual guards
to go on the front of the chairs because when people were crashing into each other, the
boxes were just flying and splintering everywhere.
And then from there, just before I finished my final year, I actually got a job running
the sport and physical activity programs for that organization.
Again, it was a really blessed opportunity and that came about.
So that's how it started really for me.
Do you remember, it's something that I've been asked before and I haven't always been
able to pinpoint it or accurately describe it.
Do you remember what the emotions you felt were or what kind of initially drew you?
Because I started with unified basketball as well and I guess it was kind of like a
youth athletes, young athletes program because there wasn't that differentiation at the time,
but we did have kids that were all the way down to five or six.
But I just remember being drawn to the unique aspect of those relationships where the athletes
we were working with really just wanted my time instead of they didn't have these expectations
for me.
What college are you going to go to?
How do you perform in your varsity basketball game this weekend?
All they cared about was me being present and I found that very refreshing.
I was wondering if there was a specific aspect of the experience that drew you in?
I think it's the people themselves.
We always slag and joke at Special Olympics saying, once you go to one session, you're
hooked.
You're not getting away.
You're going to want to come back time and time again.
But I think it's those people that you get to meet.
Like you said, it's very much about your time and being there in the moment.
I think you giving them 10 minutes of your time means so much to them as well.
And that just comes back in leaps and bounds.
It's such a nice feeling being there and just getting to know people.
I think for the children as well, it's other things where parents might be saying, look,
they're having difficulty in school.
But the minute they come into the sports hall, they're running in, they're meeting friends
for the first time.
It's the relationships even with each other that are built in that environment of Special
Olympics as well.
So yeah, I just love the people.
I just love working with them.
The university system might be a little different in Ireland than it is in the States.
But like you mentioned, an assessment that you took towards the end of high school that
determined what path you were going to go is that a competency assessment?
Like the US has SATs or is that like a match fit type of assessment?
No, it is more competency based.
So it's eight subjects, English, maths, history, science, those type of subjects.
And yeah, it's a point system.
So it's basically how well you can perform on the day.
And they're delivered over a two week period.
So you're just going in exam after exam after exam.
And it's based off your marks performed on that single day, essentially.
So that's very stressful at the time.
Yeah, absolutely.
What were your doctoral studies like?
Did you have a specific research goal?
Yeah.
So I suppose when I talk about stress, I still think those high school exams are probably
the most stressful time.
Even with the doctoral stuff was quite challenging at times, but still very enjoyable.
I think the reason I suppose I got interested in the area of research as well as part of
the sports science degree, we do research and things.
And again, in final year, you have to pick a topic of your choice.
And at that time, I'd pretty much decided I love the area of adaptive physical activity.
This is what I want to go into.
And I have had some exposure volunteering with other PhD and doctoral researchers on
their projects.
And one study in particular was called Moving Well Being Well.
We were going around across the island of Ireland, assessing children's fundamental
movement skills.
And these are children now in mainstream primary education.
So that was my first taste of fundamental movement skills and the idea of physical literacy.
So for my project, then I decided, what does that look like then for children with intellectual
disabilities?
Because what I'd seen and from the research, it showed that typically developing children
had quite poor levels of motor skill proficiency.
And I could only imagine with all the opportunities presented to them, what was it going to be
like on the other hand then for children who weren't presented, but as much opportunity
to take part in sport and physical activity?
So again, we kind of started that research or piloted it then in my final year.
And then COVID did hit at that time as well.
So it was only around November, I think 2020 then when we'd put an application in to say,
OK, we actually want to do this as a doctoral research study and take it a bit further.
And we had originally approached Special Olympics Ireland in 2019 to kind of flag the idea with
them and just see what they thought.
And Karen Coventry, who's the director of sport there and she's my boss now, was like,
she loves evidence based research and it's something that was relatively new for the
organization.
They hadn't gone down that path before.
So they were taking a chance and the young athletes, they see it as the future of the
Special Olympics program.
You know, they're coming in, we want to give them the best opportunity to develop their
fundamental movement skills.
But yet they had no findings on how was the program going?
Are the children developing their skills?
What is their baseline levels like?
So that's really where the project kind of stemmed from.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think if you look solely at the literature and I'm sure it's accurate in many ways, individuals
with disabilities, lower gross motor functioning abilities.
And I wonder sometimes if that's a product of their disability or whether it's a product
of a lack of opportunities to develop.
When you speak on like nature versus nurture, does it appear to be specific to a diagnosis
or does it maybe stem from a lack of opportunities to good programming like young athletes?
I think there's a bit of both.
Definitely.
I think that in terms of say the cognitive side of things that what the research would
say is that because of say the cognitive disability that then developmentally children with intellectual
disabilities are behind.
They're typically developing peers.
Like they might learn to walk at a later stage and things like that, which means then their
movement patterns are developing at a later rate.
So but then on the other side of things, there is definitely less opportunities for children
with ID to take part in sport and physical activity and even anecdotal evidence that
we would have heard or if a child with an intellectual disability is attending a mainstream
primary school, we've heard stories of them being left out of physical education class,
like they're left sitting on a bench because maybe the teacher doesn't know how to adapt
the activity to include them.
Or there's a fear or worry maybe from parents or from teachers about what if they get injured
or what if they get hurt side of things as well.
So I definitely think it's combination of both.
But then again, from what we've seen when we're out in the field as well is that children
who tend to take part in more than one activity, so more than one sport or you know, they're
being physically active more than one day a week, their fundamental movement skill proficiency
is definitely higher because they've had more exposure to it.
And I think the key about fundamental movement skills is that the more you need to be provided
with opportunities to learn, reinforce and practice them.
You know, it's the same with everything with with reading, with writing, the more we do
it, the better we are at it.
And so yeah, exactly the same for fundamental movement skills.
Yeah, that learn, reinforce, practice is essential because I think sometimes there's a lot of
seasonal based programs for people with disabilities.
But it's like the same thing in the fitness space.
But if you came to me with a specific fitness goal, and my response was, yeah, we have our
next eight week program starting next month.
And then after that eight week program, the next one starting a month later, like, that's
not the best recipe for fitness improvement, motor skill improvement, etc.
So it really reinforces the essential piece of year round programming, I suppose.
Yeah, and young athletes, the young athletes program is a year round program, which is
great.
So the only time it really runs alongside the school year.
So the only time periods that the children would not be taking part is over the summer
months.
And again, some clubs depending on volunteer availability, they might run through or for
as long as they can through the summer as well.
And then at Christmas time, maybe for two weeks or in December.
So it is it is a really good program in that respect that it is year round.
However, it is just one day a week.
So we are really trying to encourage athletes to take part in other things outside of the
program as well.
And once athletes are between the ages of six and eight, it's just it is sport dependent.
They can join other sports programs that we have on offer with Special Olympics.
However, we are obviously trying to encourage, you know, I think one thing that the coaches
tell me they struggle with a bit sometimes is managing parents expectations because they
might say my child has been in the program a year.
I want them to go to a sport.
And we're trying to say, but they haven't developed, you know, all of the skills that
they need to be able to play basketball or to play football or to do those things.
So I think if it is the one day a week, you know, we need to be recognizing that it might
take a bit longer.
Whereas if they're physically active outside of the program, then those skills will develop
at a faster rate.
So is this seen as a prerequisite to participation or like a supplementary option?
So at the moment, we probably are trying to go down the prerequisite route a bit.
It was only introduced in 2016, this young athletes program for the first time, because
prior to that, it would have been I think children had to be aged eight to join the
sports program.
So parents were looking for their children to get into things earlier, which of course,
you know, any other child might start a sport or, you know, at age four, it could be.
So that's why the program then was introduced.
So yeah, look, we are trying to say that it's a prerequisite, but we don't stop anybody
if they want to wait and join a sports program either.
Yeah.
I just wonder if sometimes the best way to get better at a sport is to practice it or
just to be to be engaged in it to a degree.
So the parallel between like you have to meet XYZ standard to participate or you start participating,
you identify where the deficits are and then you try to address those deficits either within
practice or within supplementary training.
Yeah, it's an interesting model.
But you had mentioned some of the cognitive deficits may be contributing to slower processing
speeds and lower gross motor skills.
While we push like authentic conclusions of people with and without disabilities, like
seamlessly coexisting or various diagnoses coexisting, could you make the case for like
more specialized programs being beneficial for people with disabilities?
So for example, in the States, there's like Down Syndrome Sports of America.
So for athletes solely with Down Syndrome, like, could you make the case for specialized
being advantageous to kind of level the playing field?
I think that's an interesting question.
I think I suppose we also are looking at society and what's happening in our communities and
things like that as well.
So while you might say, okay, so everybody with Down Syndrome, let's do this program
because, you know, we can tailor it, obviously tailoring it to meet individual needs is so
important, but I think that that can happen at a sports session or the young athletes
program anyway.
Because with the help of the coaches and volunteers, they get to know their athletes really, really
well.
I think that that is what is more important than I suppose, grouping people into more
kind of categories for sports.
I think Special Olympics in general, you know, we are segregated in that sense that it is
only for people with intellectual disabilities or I know in the United States you have unified
sports.
At the moment in Ireland, we haven't rolled out that program model as of yet.
I think in the future, it's probably something that the organization might look at.
But as of now, we're solely a program for people with ID and I think it's part of coach
education and training that catering for the individual athlete and to meet their individual
needs is part of what we do anyway.
So everybody should be able to be included and catered for within the session.
Yeah, and I'm a big proponent of the mixed ability model, not necessarily advocating
for specialized but yeah, it's just an interesting idea of like what environment is someone most
successful in and then what environment do they feel most included in.
I think for a long time, I thought that inclusion was just like the presence of people with
or without disabilities.
But now, now the literature kind of trends towards inclusion as an experience or as an
emotion that's kind of ever evolving and it's really up to the individual to determine
when they feel included and not myself as a gym owner or a coach to say like, oh, this
program is inclusive.
It's kind of it's up to the participant, I guess to a degree.
What are the unique challenges of conducting research with this population?
So you know, one thing that I will start with is that no matter what mood I was in before
going to, you know, an assessment or testing session, leaving the session, I was always
happy just because the children themselves just make you really, really happy and they're
just a joy to be around.
But I think some of the challenges or kind of solutions as well that we would have implemented.
So when I was helping with other researchers at the time in those primary school settings,
we would have groups of children and we would say, you know, number one, go do your run.
Number two, go that does not work when you're working in an adaptive setting.
So we would work one on one with each child and we would go through the full battery of
fundamental movement skill assessments with them as part of the assessment.
Anyway, you would demonstrate this time we've actually brought in a visual support protocol.
So we're using, you know, the pictorial exchange communication system, symbols and pictures
to show the athletes the skill, then we demonstrate and then we ask them to copy us and to do
the skill then.
So definitely working on a one to one basis, building that rapport, getting to know the
athletes name, a lot of motivation and encouragement is definitely needed in those settings as
well.
And I think that's probably, you know, some of the challenges maybe we might have faced
is that not knowing the researchers, but I suppose that that could happen anywhere.
I think you just have to build that rapport when you go in and make it seem like fun and
that it's a game and not be putting obviously any pressure or anything saying we don't
mention that it's a test.
We mentioned that it's a few games that we're doing.
We want to see how good you are at performing the skills and then just rewarding with a
sticker and things like that at the end.
And I think challenging wise, because again, we're a volunteer led organization, sometimes
life happens for people and if there's one lead volunteer, then a session might be canceled
if that volunteer can't attend, which means that we'd miss out on attending the club on
that week.
Other things, usual stuff like weather or if it's an outdoor session and it starts raining
really heavy and the children can't be outside.
So just those type of challenges really.
And I suppose also the number because we work on a one to one basis and most sessions are
only 40 minutes to an hour long, we only get through a certain number of children.
We only get to assess a certain number.
Whereas again, if you were going to a school, you could spend the whole day there and probably
do between 30 to 40 children, you know, every hour, hour and a half type thing.
But that is it's just not the same when you're working with a special population.
So our testing periods are that bit more challenging and a bit longer probably than what would
typically be expected.
Are you able to articulate, I guess verbally without visuals and stuff, the criteria of
the fundamental movement screen, like what motor skills you're looking at, what activities
they're doing during that testing?
So we use two types of assessments.
So we use the test of gross motor development three and the box two.
So in the TGMD three, that's things like running, skipping, horizontal jump in terms of your
locomotor skills, your object control would be catching, kicking, overhand throw, underhand
throw, one hand strike, things like that.
And then the two assessments in the box two are balanced.
So a beam balance where you're standing on one leg with your hands on your hips and then
walking heel to toe on a line with hands on your hips.
So the ones that the athletes or the children would struggle with a lot is the balance assessments.
And when we looked at in terms of percentage mastery, so how close are they at scoring
in all of the criteria?
So a one would mean that you achieved that criteria, a zero means that you didn't.
And there's between three and four criteria per skill in the test of gross motor development
three.
And then for the box two, it's whether you can, how many steps can you do out of those
six?
If any, if you get all six, you don't have to do a second trial, but you're given a second
trial if you don't get six.
And then for the beam balance, it's a 10 seconds.
Can you hold that position for 10 seconds without dropping your leg?
So the balance is definitely in terms of percentage mastery.
When we assessed during the doctoral studies, a hundred children with intellectual disabilities,
no percent of them had mastered those skills of balance, which was particularly concerning
because I know in later life for people with intellectual disabilities, the risk of falls
and the prevalence of falls tends to be a lot higher.
So if between the ages of four to 12, if your balance is already quite poor, where does
that leave you as you start to get older?
So it was definitely, that was probably the most surprising thing for me that came out
of the findings.
Does there need to be a familiarization period for the participants?
Like, like, is there some degree of understanding and practicing the tests that would just show
someone or that would lead to improvement, but not necessarily insinuate that they've
globally improved their ability to balance, but just that they got better at that specific
test through practice?
Very possibly.
I think in terms of the assessment batteries that we were using and the reason we selected
those was because they were deemed to be the most appropriate for field use with that particular
population.
I know other studies, like we had found afterwards, that visual support protocol was used with
the tests of gross motor development three back in 2017 with children who had autism.
And they did show that with the visualization pictures and the cards, that the children
performed better in the assessments than without the cards, which is why we introduced them
this time to help with cognitive understanding of what we are asking the children to do.
Because yes, 100 percent that probably, you know, I'd almost say definitely comes into
play.
But in terms of the protocols, the way they stand at the moment, there isn't really a
familiarization period.
And then again, I suppose if you were to add that in, that even further elongates how much
testing time or assessment time is required.
And for the project that we're doing at the moment, we're like under very strict or tight
timeline.
So we were hoping to assess 90 children within a three week period.
And the coaches would deliver an eight week intervention and then we would reassess, you
know, eight weeks later in another three week round.
So it's quite challenging if you were to add a familiarization period.
But I would imagine or hypothesize that it would help.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Because I just wonder if the first time they're introduced to the test and then they go through
the intervention and then they do the test again, whether improvements are specifically
to the intervention could be attributed specifically to the intervention or to a degree of being
more familiar with the test, being more comfortable with the test.
I think sometimes it's even a struggle to try and encourage children to come up and
do the assessments with us as well, because their session continues on in the background
whilst we're working one on one.
It's like, oh, my coach and my friends are having more fun than what you're doing over
here with me.
So, you know, we did have a few athletes saying, no, that's boring.
I don't want to do it.
And that's them, you know, saying, no, I'm not consenting to take part.
So my fear would be to ask them to do it more than once.
They would probably be like, nope, I want to just do my session the way it is.
Yeah, definitely speaks to motivation.
Like influencing a lot of test results as well to like how engaged they are, how well
they're concentrating on the task versus being distracted by that external stimuli.
Are you able to share kind of what the eight week intervention plans to look like or maybe
how a fitness program that works with young individuals with disabilities could adopt
pieces of this intervention to work on some of these gross motor skills with their clients?
Yes, so when we were designing it, I suppose some key things that we had in mind was repetition.
Number one is really important for this population and the structure.
A lot of the coaches would say to us, you know, the athletes like to follow the same
structure.
They like to know what happens when they enter the session, what's happening next.
And typically how most coaches would end their session is with a parachute game.
So what we did was we made sure that over the eight weeks there was only four warm ups,
activities or games suggested, and they were trying to incorporate, you know, a range of
different fundamental movement skills, mainly locomotor and balance for their warm up.
And then we would repeat the same four for the following, you know, last four weeks of
the eight week program.
We also wanted to try and focus on a range of fundamental movement skills as well, because,
you know, you could just focus, say, on locomotor skills and you're probably guaranteed to see
an increase then over eight weeks.
But because of our findings from the PhD where we were seeing overall low motor skill proficiency
across the different skills, we wanted to try and incorporate as many as possible.
So each week we would focus on two key skills.
We would do like a skill development game or activity where the coach is reinforcing
some of the key coaching or teaching points.
And then we would focus on a game based approach, incorporating that skill then.
And that's kind of the structure of how it would go.
We also have an obstacle course each week as well, because again, you can get a range
of skills in there and, you know, bring in kind of stories as well.
You know, you're at the zoo or you're at the circus and you've to splash in the puddles,
jump over a log, those type of things where you're really engaging the athletes and getting
their imagination working as well.
From your research and your experience out in the field here, what has been the biggest
surprise to you or what has been the thing that has been most unique in terms of maybe
what you hypothesized when you started and then what you realized through data collection?
I think I suppose it does come back to that balance number as well.
So we did compare in previous research, we compared the percentage mastery of balance
for children with intellectual disabilities and typically developing children of the same
age and gender.
So they're age and gender matched.
And the typically developing children, it was 75% mastery in the balance compared to
the 0%.
So that really, really did not only concern me, but we kind of brought it up to the coaches
then and focus groups and said, you know, are you surprised?
What do you think of this 0% mastery?
And they said, well, you never gave us any equipment or you never thought us how to do
balance activities or coach them.
So I think, you know, we were saying, okay, yeah, you are right.
So we needed to look then at our equipment pack and toolkit that we provide to the coaches.
So we've added now a balanced beam, we've added balanced rocks.
And as part of this new intervention, we are giving coaching cues and we had videos recorded
of each of the activities so the coaches could see exactly how they should be demonstrating
each of those as well.
So I think coach education is a really big thing because with Special Olympics, a lot
of the coaches may be family members or they may be parents with no sporting background.
And the reason they set up a club or the reason they show up week on week is because they
want to help and provide something for their child and for other children in the community.
So the education side is definitely really important.
And we've had, we had a coaches training online there last week, just before the intervention
started this week.
And I was a bit nervous because the coaches are very honest, which I love, but they hadn't
seen the session plans yet.
So we talked through each of the plans over the eight weeks.
And then I said, does anybody have any feedback or questions?
And they said, one of the coaches said, yeah, I have something to say.
And I was like, mm hmm.
And she goes, I love it.
You listen to us in the focus groups.
This is exactly what we wanted.
We can't wait to try it.
So that was really, really nice to hear.
And it was a sigh of relief saying, OK, great.
It is what they are looking for.
And we've managed to put down on paper what the coaches needed.
And I had an email from one of the coaches who delivered on Tuesday evening to say it
really helps the other volunteers.
So it meant that not everybody in the room was relying on him because I think that's
one of the things as well that I was seeing out in the field was that if there is only
one lead person who knows the session plan or the activity, if they get distracted because
a child is off maybe doing something that they shouldn't be, then the rest of the session
tends to fall apart because other people can't step in and pick up where that person has
left off.
So everybody, he said he handed the session plan out to everybody and everyone was on
the same page then.
And most importantly, the athletes enjoyed it, which is what we want to be hearing.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
So the focus group of coaches who are providing feedback as to what they believe they need.
You're working with a population that might not be able to always articulate like, I'm
struggling with this or I need to work on that.
Do you guys also leverage parent or caregiver surveys to understand where they perceive
their children are behind in motor skill development?
So we did previously ask a question, how would you rate your child's ability compared to
other children of the same age?
I think a lot of people said in and around the same, but it's interesting that you mentioned
parents because I've just sent out a parent's questionnaire this afternoon.
And what we are assessing now is parents' knowledge and confidence about the topics
of physical literacy and fundamental movement skills.
Because again, we know parents are a big facilitator to children being physically active at a young
age because they're the ones who are putting them in the car and driving them to the sports
hall or venue.
And again, the research would say that more active parents raise active children.
So I think education though is a big part for us.
So it'll be interesting now to see how the parents' knowledge and confidence about these
topic areas are.
And then tomorrow and Sunday, I'm actually out with two clubs, young athletes clubs delivering
parents' workshops.
So we collaborated with the University of Alberta who have a workshop called Play Shop
and they deliver that to parents of preschool children aged three to five years.
And when I came across their work, I said, this sounds like something that we really
need.
So we've been reaching out and linking in with them since September, since we first
had the idea for the project or started applying for ethical approval.
And they've shared their materials with us.
And again, a lot of the games that they're teaching the parents, they can be done at
home with simple enough equipment.
You know, using tea towels or using pillows and things like that.
So we put a little parents pack together for tomorrow with beanbags and ropes.
You know, I call them like snakes for balancing and walking on hula hoops, you know, for on
the floor and jumping into balloons to a small ball for catching a larger one for kicking
plastic cups to use as a target for kicking into or throwing something up.
So the games that the researchers from Play Shop have, I think will be really, really
beneficial for the athletes that we work with.
So the plan is for this intervention.
So three groups are taking part in the eight weeks of session plans.
And then another two groups are doing the eight weeks of session plans plus this parents
workshop.
And then we have our control group who are just doing their typical weekly session.
So the plan will be to see if there's any difference in motor skill proficiency, if
there's improvements and which groups are improving.
Is it the one who are doing the weekly with their coach plus doing twice a week with their
parents like a little game for 10 minutes twice a week?
I think that'll be really interesting to see again with our hypothesis that the more opportunities
you get to learn, practice and reinforce these skills, the better you're going to become
at them.
So yeah, that's the plan.
We try to tie a lot of these episodes into fitness in some ways, so maybe we can try
to make this fitness specific.
So if a gym was working with young individuals with disabilities, intellectual disabilities,
do you have any recommendations, practical recommendations into how they could make a
more robust and enjoyable program for young adults with disabilities, intellectual disabilities
specifically?
Yeah, I think asking your participants, you know, what would you like to do today or what
do you want to focus on?
Because again, people coming into a gym, you know, everybody has different goals and different
interests of why they want to be there.
It might be because I want to get fitter.
It might be because maybe I want to lose a bit of weight or I want to run faster or,
you know, different things.
So I think asking your participants why they're here and what do they want to get out of their
gym, what exercises do they like doing or what are some that they don't really like.
If they don't like them, why don't they like them?
And again, just making sure that I suppose the people gain confidence in their ability
to take part in the exercises as well, because you want them to be able to after they finish
with you, maybe if they're going into another gym, you know, that you're confident in their
ability to be able to safely carry out the exercises as well.
Yeah, and some of the some of the pieces that you were mentioning during the research, like
visual support protocols, things like that might make a better learning experience for
people with disabilities within the gym as well.
So kind of just leveraging, leveraging presenting materials in different ways that you're probably
familiar with universal design.
So yeah, 100%.
I think like a timetable as well.
If it's a class and you know, first we're doing this, then we're doing this and just
to kind of provide that reassurance.
Because I think some people that I've worked with who have autism as well, they really
like structure and they like to know what is happening next and at what time and things
like that.
So even having a visual schedule of the exercises or activities that you're doing could also
be very helpful.
If a gym, if a gym wanted to support more individuals with disabilities, sometimes it
just requires like grassroot efforts of reaching out to organizations that are support, support
those clientele and and learning how you can help them.
How do you think organizations can collaborate with Special Olympics to be kind of a partner
in your mission?
So for example, if you're saying young athletes only meets once a week, if my gym was 10 minutes
away from you, would something like Special Olympics be receptive you think to me offering
additional programs to kind of supplement what you're doing?
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one thing that we're very lucky with in Ireland is that we have a network of local
sports partnerships is what they're called.
So they would be kind of government led groups that each area in the country or not each
area but a lot of the areas would have and they would have a designated person who's
called, sorry, the acronym is SIDO.
They are Sports Inclusion Disability Officers.
So their whole role would be to create opportunities within the local community for people with
disabilities and Special Olympics would really have strong connections and work with them
because again for us, it's just about people getting out there and being active and if
that means, you know, like you said, young athletes is only once a week, we would be
encouraging you to go to other organizations to get active and to get out there because
it will benefit you across your life then and it will benefit you when you come and
take part in the Special Olympics programs or sport and competition as well.
But I think that local sports partnership network is a really big asset that we do have
and that we would be encouraging families, athletes, everyone to tap into because they
run a lot of free programs as well which is really beneficial and it kind of removes that
barrier of cost for people as well.
Can you think of any misconceptions that people have about Special Olympics?
One of the big ones when we speak to students is, oh yeah, the Paralympics would be the
first thing that people say or oh, it's for people who don't have limbs or you know,
like they would be kind of some of the statements that people would make and through my work,
what we've really, really tried to do because I want to encourage as many students to get
involved as possible because I think that's how, like yourself as well, when you just
get started, you get a love for it.
And so we work with the sports science students who are first years in Dublin City University
and we pair them up with local Special Olympics clubs and we get them out for a six to eight
week period in their own time outside of university hours to get that first taste of volunteer
experience and the feedback from them is, oh, I didn't know or I didn't realize how
sporty people with intellectual disabilities could be, I didn't realize how competitive,
how much fun, like crack, you know, all of that type of thing that people would say to
us afterwards.
Yeah, yeah, the shared recreation seems to be one of the best ways to address attitudinal
barriers and expectations or lower expectations that people have.
Because people are nervous, I think sometimes as well, you know, if you've never met someone
with a disability, I think some people are worried they'll say the wrong thing or that
they'll offend somebody as well.
And I think, you know, our advice would be just be yourself, just get out there and,
you know, people are people at the end of the day.
So I think that's one of the big things that we would say to the students.
Absolutely.
What direction do you hope your research or your work goes in in the coming years?
Have I thought about this question?
I definitely think I would love to stay in my research in the area of adaptive physical
activity.
I potentially would like to broaden it out more towards health because from my previous
role as health and wellbeing coordinator, we have seen a lot of health disparities and
we know that people with intellectual disabilities face a lot of health disparities compared
to the general population.
And things like, you know, dying on average 16 to 20 years earlier than the general population,
twice as likely to have cardiovascular disease, twice as likely to get things like arthritis.
And a lot of those things, they're not because of the intellectual disability diagnosis,
but because of things like lack of access to health care or equal access to health care,
lack of accessible health promotion and health education opportunities, those type of things,
health care professional training or lack of, because what we've seen is that again,
what we are trying to do, so not only with sports science students, but with students
with health care backgrounds like audiology, podiatry, ophthalmology, health promotion,
that we work with those students, deliver an inclusive health lecture, teach them about
the health disparities that people with ID face and then give them an opportunity to
take part in a health screening.
So it's called Healthy Athletes is one of our free health screening programs that we've
run and get them to get hands on experience working with the population so that when they
become health care professionals, when they finish university, that they'll be comfortable
and they'll be confident to treat a patient who has an intellectual disability.
So that's another big part of the work that we do.
And again, I know you mentioned there about the health education programs that I've expanded
since I was with the organization.
So we introduced things like breast cancer awareness workshops.
We introduced Health at Play.
So that's health education for the young athletes program.
So age four upwards.
And again, some of the coaches were saying, what, how do you do health education with
four year olds?
And I said, okay, we'll show you.
So a lot of things like a giant clock to talk about sleep.
So what time do we go to bed at?
What time do we wake up at?
A lot of visual props and tools for hydration.
We have our giant toilet bowls with a little, they call them like puddles or pools of urine.
So the different colors of urine.
And you say, which color should it be and what color is it really though?
And when we drink enough water, we know it should be very light yellow and not smelly.
So these are the types of things for the Health at Play with the younger athletes that we
do because again, getting that health knowledge from a younger age and carrying that on through
as you get older, we just hope to kind of intercept early and establish those lifelong
health behaviors from a young age within the program.
And then we've also brought in mental health was a big one as well around COVID with athletes
saying to us, our adult athletes saying that they were experiencing feelings of social
isolation and loneliness and they miss their friends.
They miss their activities that Special Olympics would have provided.
And that again, for athletes who are going the competitive route and selected for a World
Games opportunity, it's a big deal.
And a lot of nerves and anxiety can come with that.
Being away from home for the first time, getting on a plane for the first time, sharing a room
with somebody for the first time who snores or likes the light on and you don't like the
light on.
So our Stronger Minds, Happier Lives program is a five module program that we worked with
Mental Health Ireland on to design that.
And that was co-produced with a team of Special Olympics athletes who are health messengers.
So they've been trained as role models and advocates for their own health, but the health
of all athletes or people with intellectual disabilities.
So that team would speak a lot at different conferences or events and advocate on behalf
of people with ID as well.
So they're just some of the programs that we've created and got up and running to help
try and end some of the health disparities that this group face.
Yeah, you got your hand in a lot of different projects.
You had first mentioned wanting to move from adaptive PA to health globally.
And I was going to ask how you defined health, but it seems like you encompassed it pretty
well there.
So not just physical health, but also emotional health, mental health, et cetera.
I think yesterday actually we were down in a county in Ireland called Limerick because
we have been chosen.
I say we, a team of consultants, which I'm lucky to be part of, all really brilliant
researchers in the field of intellectual disability research and studies came together and put
in a proposal to Special Olympics International when they put out a call to look at and assess
the health care system through a systems level approach.
So we were one of 10 sites selected.
We're the only country in Europe to be selected for this project and this team of researchers
over the next few weeks are going to deep dive into the Irish health care system and
see is it really inclusive and accessible for people with intellectual disabilities.
So I think that's a really great start on starting to look at health for this population
and something that hasn't been done previously.
Yeah, that'll be really interesting to see the results of that.
Is that through, what organization is that through just if people want to kind of be
attuned to the results?
So Special Olympics International have partnered with the Missing Billion Initiative and they
created a separate IDD module that is added on to the Missing Billion criteria and that's
basically the assessment tool that we'll be using to determine whether the health care
system is inclusive for people with ID or not.
I think some of the other, there's three states in the US that are involved in the project
as well.
I think Wisconsin was one of them and there's another two on the map that they've shared.
I think places like India and things.
But we're the only, Ireland was the only European country selected to be part of this project.
So we're very grateful for that.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's awesome.
If people want to learn more about the work that you're doing, we can include it in the
show notes of course, but where would you direct them to go or what resources would
you share?
So our social media is Special Olympics Ireland social media pages.
We have Instagram and Facebook and I suppose about Special Olympics in general, Special
Olympics.org for internationally to see where, if you want to volunteer or what are the sports
that we deliver and run and things like that and to see.
There's over 170 countries involved with Special Olympics.
So no matter where you are around the world, I'm sure you'd be able to find a club if you
wanted to volunteer.
And then my LinkedIn, I love LinkedIn.
I love posting updates and things like that and sharing work and projects that's happening.
So happy for people to connect with me on LinkedIn under Hayley Cappna.
Yeah, if you hadn't mentioned that I was going to say LinkedIn, because that was the first
way I was introduced to your work was just through finding one of the research papers
that you shared and you're always posting a lot of good resources and even preparing
for this.
I was mostly just able to read through your LinkedIn feed and learned a lot about the
work that you were doing, which is rare.
Not everyone shares things openly on LinkedIn for their work, but I think it's awesome.
It's supposed to be a professional network.
So it's the perfect place for that.
So we'll include your LinkedIn page in the show notes as well as well as Special Olympic
Ireland pages.
But Hayley, it was great to learn more about what you're doing.
I really both appreciate it and value it greatly.
So again, we'll share those things so people can connect with you if they're interested
in learning more.
Maybe if someone wants to start a young athletes program, they can learn from the model that
you guys have created.
And yeah, I appreciate your time and look forward to sharing this with our audience.
Thank you so much.
It was great being here.
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