Social Lives
Authors: Dr. Emma Smith, Postdoctoral Researcher, AT2030, ALL Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University and Ana Geppert, Masters student of Global Health at VU Amsterdam, intern with the ALL Institute at Maynooth University, in partnership with Loughborough University.
In celebration of the launch of the #WeThe15 campaign; the largest ever global human rights campaign to increase awareness and social inclusion of people with disabilities through sport, we would like to share some of our recent research in the area. #WeThe15 is an acknowledgement that at least 15% of the world population – over 1 billion people – live with one or more disabilities, each of whom is entitled to all of the rights and freedoms, and the benefits of social inclusion experienced by people without disabilities worldwide. Of those rights affirmed in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure, and sport (Article 30) is one that we have had a recent focus on in our work.
There are many benefits associated with engaging in sports. Playing, watching, or supporting sports can contribute to a sense of community, promote social inclusion, and provide opportunities for physical activity. Engaging in sports may include the casual football player with friends to a kayaker exploring the coastline, to the super-fan attending every match played by their college team.
When we think about sport and disability, images of elite athletes often come to mind. We think about Paralympic athletes running at great speeds on their prosthetic limbs or a wheelchair basketball team in an international tournament. We have even been introduced to the world of sport and disability through films like Murderball, which showcases the lives of two wheelchair rugby teams competing for gold. We see advertisements showcasing these elite athletes at times creating a controversial ‘superhuman’ narrative which has been suggested may actually have a negative impact on the disability community.
The reality is that for most people, regardless of whether we currently experience disability or not, our engagement in sport is much broader. Most of us will never become elite athletes. Many of us may never even participate in formal team sporting events. Yet it is far more common to see engagement in recreational sport or engagement through watching or supporting sport as the norm among people who are not currently disabled. It is such a normal part of our lives that the global sports technology market was valued at $17.9 Billion USD in 2021. Research in the area is similarly invested. Research into sports engagement has produced countless studies and articles on concepts as far-reaching as the meaning of sport for female fans, the economics of sport engagement, and the impact of sport engagement on adolescents’ alcohol use. A Google Scholar search for the term “sport engagement” produces over 1.5 million results, and one for “sport technology” returns over 3 million. It’s clear that sports engagement, and the technology used in sport, are a huge part of people’s lives – regardless of how they engage.
However, similar to our media portrayal of people with disabilities engaging in sport, our research focus on sport engagement in disability and technology for disability sport is much narrower. The same Google Scholar search for sport engagement when adding the word disability returns less than 100,000 results, with similar numbers reported for a search on sport, technology, and disability. Of those, much of our research is focused on elite-level athletes and highly engineered assistive technology, and little focus is put on everyday non-elite adaptive sports.
Members of the Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute (Ana Geppert, Dr. Emma M. Smith, Dr. Ikenna Ebuenyi, and Prof. Mac MacLachlan) have recently collaborated with a team at Loughborough University to consider all the ways technology contributes to participation in everyday sport for persons with disabilities. Our study, titled Assistive Technology to Promote Engagement in Sport (forthcoming) explores how the 50 everyday assistive products on the Priority Assistive Product List (APL), established by the World Health Organization’s Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology (GATE) initiative can enhance engagement with, and participation in, sports at all levels of engagement.
From the results of our online survey, we can demonstrate the importance of everyday assistive products for promoting engagement in sports. Non-sport-specific items on the list include those assistive products which are not manufactured with the main purpose to be used in the moment of sport’s performance. Our research suggests that these products are crucial in the before and after to the moment of sport’s participation. This has resulted in us considering sport’s engagement in a new light, in which the participation is not only composed by the moment of performance but rather encompasses the before, during, and after as well. These findings suggest that the old model of looking at sport’s engagement and inclusion is not representative of the reality of what participating in sports means.
For instance, besides the wheelchair used to play power-football, the Assistive Technology-user on the field may also use ramps to access the venue, incontinence products to feel comfortable while playing and a pressure relief mattress to recover properly for the next match. Similarly, a person who might use a prosthesis to access the sporting facility, might not need it during the sport’s performance itself but may need it again afterwards to celebrate their hard work and achievement with friends.
With the Paralympics around the corner, we have a great opportunity to promote sport participation for people with disabilities, not only at an elite level but at any level of engagement. To understand better what is needed to enhance participation and to make it more available to all. Engaging in sport is a human right, and we still have a long way to go to make it a reality for all people with disability around the world! We are excited to be working in partnership with AT2030 and the Global Disability Innovation Hub (a founding partner of the #WeThe15 campaign) to produce this research and to increase awareness of sport engagement for people with disabilities. For more information on #WeThe15, visit https://www.wethe15.org.