The participation of youths with disability in sports activities : aspects of psychosocial impact

Abstract EN

Sports participation among the youth with disabilities is getting more attention due to the increase in their participant at national and international competitions.

The benefits of participating in sports activities for youths with disabilities have been well documented.

There has been evidence that sports contribute to the holistic development including better quality of life and provide opportunities for social and emotional development.

This exploratory study aims to find out on the status of psychological skills among youths with disabilities who participate in sports activities.

A set of questionnaire which measures athlete identity, social identity, exclusivity and negative affectivity was administered to 358 youths with disabilities who participated in sports activities organised by the Ministry of Youth and Sports.

Data were analysed descriptively involving mean scores and standard deviation.

Inferential statistics involving analysis of variance and t-test were also used to explore the significant strength between variables.

The findings show that there are significant difference among categories of disability for negative affectivity after involvement in sports programmes (F=3.148, p <0.05).

There are also significant difference in athlete’s identity (F=7.017, p < 0.05), psychosocial development (F=2.864, p < 0.05) and life values (F=3.568, p < 0.05).

T-test analysis shows significant difference for some constructs based on gender which include self-identity (t=94.655, p<0.05), exclusivity (t=90.240, p<0.05), and negative affectivity (t=93.377, p<0.05).

Further analysis reveals that individuals participating in team sports have higher psychosocial skills and increased confidence as compared to those involved in individual sports.

This study has implications on increased provision of sports activities, personnel and facilities for youths with disabilities.