Inclusive Sports in Noth Dakota Public High Schools: the Current Landscape Including Benefits and Barriers

Purpose/Hypothesis: Inclusive sports, defined as athletic programs that combine students with and without disabilities to fully participate and compete on the same team for their school, have been shown to be beneficial for children/adolescents of all abilities in multiple domains of life. Children and adolescents with disabilities participate in sports significantly less often than their peers without disabilities. Inclusive sports provide an important opportunity for children and adolescents with disabilities to participate in sports. To increase access to inclusive sports opportunities the prevalence, benefits, and barriers must first be identified. The purpose of this study was to identify the prevalence, benefits, and barriers of the implementation of inclusive sports in high schools in the state of North Dakota (ND).

Number of Subjects: Participants included an administrative representative from 36 ND public high schools representing 10 of 10 state public school regions.

Materials/Methods: The study was a nonexperimental multi-methods design implementing cross-sectional survey methodology. Data was collected using an online questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 20 demographic questions, 2 open-ended questions and 2 multiple-choice questions investigating the participants perceived benefits and barriers to offering inclusive sports at their respective schools.

Results: Only 19% (n=7) of the participating schools offer at least one inclusive sport. Among all participants 8 different inclusive sports were identified as offered with baseball being the most prevalent (n=6, 17%) followed by basketball (n=4, 11%). The most frequent perceived benefit to inclusive sports was building relationships and promoting inclusion (n=30, 83%) followed by improving quality of life (n=23, 64%). The most frequent barriers reported were poor availability of coaches educated in inclusive sports (n=20, 56%) and lack of knowledge about inclusive sports (n=18, 50%). Qualitative data revealed that the prevailing theme of participants regarding why they offer inclusive sports was belonging to the community. The two themes emerging from participants who did not offer inclusive sports were lack of resources and lack of perceived interest.

Conclusions: There is an apparent lack of inclusive sports programs in ND public high schools. School administrators identify both benefits and barriers to providing inclusive sports. Based on the small percentage of schools (n=7, 19%) that offer inclusive sports in ND, it appears that currently the barriers such as limited resources and lack of knowledge/training outweigh the benefits of promoting inclusion and improving quality of life for the development and implementation of inclusive sports programs. Based on these findings of the local prevalence, benefits, and barriers, further research is needed to describe this issue regionally and nationally.

Clinical Relevance: Physical therapists and others should further promote the development and implementation of inclusive sports to optimize the human experience. Advocacy efforts should aim to spread awareness of the benefits as well as work to overcome barriers of inclusive sports programs.