The following article comes from the Aspen Institute’s State of Play Kansas City report. The report assesses the opportunities and barriers for more children to access sports and physical activity in the Kansas City region.
Children with disabilities often face more barriers to access sports. These challenges exist due to lack of awareness from those without disabilities to include them, lack of opportunities for training and competition, lack of accessible facilities, limited resources and perceptions about the interests and abilities of youth with disabilities to play sports.
Greater promotion in schools of integrated sports — meaning pairing children with and without physical or intellectual disabilities on the same team — can help increase access to sports for children with disabilities. Nationally, Special Olympics offers children with and without intellectual disabilities to play on the same team through Unified Sports, often in schools. Kansas reported in 2022-23 having 35 schools with Unified bowling teams — the only Unified school sport in the state, and Missouri had no Unified school teams, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
While more Unified opportunities are needed in schools, the situation is even more challenging to access adaptive sports in schools. Only six states (not including Kansas or Missouri) have schools with adaptive basketball programs, whether integrated or not. Kansas City-area schools could create a local adaptive sports league in partnership with adaptive sports providers, such as Midwest Adaptive Sports and its Kansas City Kings wheelchair basketball team, YMCA Challenger, American Association of Adaptive Sports Programs and Move United.
Local school districts could start by piloting integrated wheelchair basketball leagues, meaning children with and without disabilities play on the same team.
Schools have often overlooked the requirement to provide sports for students with physical disabilities. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education has urged schools to create interscholastic programs for students with disabilities due to schools’ responsibilities under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Given basketball’s popularity — it’s the world’s most popular Paralympic sport — wheelchair basketball in middle and high school settings could be organized as the pilot sport. Move United offers guidelines for wheelchair basketball and advises that schools follow standardized rules so teams can compete state-wide.
Able-bodied involvement educates those without disabilities on a different perspective of sports and valuable social interactions with peers. It also helps sustain the growth of wheelchair basketball to have enough members for teams. Wheelchair basketball uses a classification system, based on the extent to which an impairment impacts performance, to ensure the sport is inclusive and fair while determining positions and roles on the court. Players are assigned a classification from 1.0 to 4.5 points based on their functional ability. Non-disabled players and players who do not have an eligible impairment are assigned the highest value of 5.0 points.
Research in Britain shows health and social benefits are the main reasons players with and without disabilities say they play the sport together. Players like the social aspect of wheelchair basketball with its mixed ability, mixed gender and mixed ages. The research found that able-bodied participants were not aware they could play wheelchair basketball until they were introduced to it by friends.
Matt Bollig, founder of the Kansas City Kings wheelchair basketball team, has seen the benefits firsthand. The Kings run integrated camps, allowing siblings and friends of children with disabilities to play as well.
“It makes children feel less scared to play by including someone they know in the experience,” Bollig said. “Integrated basketball in schools could definitely be done here.”
Model for Integrated Adaptive Sports in Schools
The Georgia High School Association (GHSA) found a costeffective and OCR-compliant model, allowing for an appropriate number of students to field teams. GHSA offers integrated wheelchair sports for basketball, handball and football. Since 2001, GHSA has recognized the American Association of Adapted Sports Programs (AAASP) as the governing and sanctioning body for interscholastic adapted athletics, serving Georgia students with physical disabilities and qualifying health and sensory requirements.
School districts located in more rural areas may form regional teams by collaborating with another school district or community partner, such as a local YMCA and/or parks and recreation department. The AAASP membership fee in Georgia is $3,100 per sport season for up to four teams fielded by a school district. The fees include various services provided by AAASP.
Jon Solomon is Community Impact Director of the Aspen Institute’s Project Play initiative. Jon can be reached at jon.solomon@aspeninstitute.org.