Poster - #VH-73661 - Keywords: sports, toddlers, physical disabilities, non-profit

The Importance of Sports as Occupation for Toddlers with Physical Disabilities: Combining non-profit community programming with occupational therapy student education

Chelsea James, MOT, OTR/L RYCT, RYT-200, Erica Willimann, MOT, OTR/L
Washington University St. Louis

ABSTRACT:
We will present an overview of our program curriculum we have developed for sports as occupation for toddlers with physical disabilities.This curriculum was developed and implemented for the community non-profit setting and advanced over the last 3 years with partnership with Washington University to advance program development and outcomes with 3 different occupational therapy student groups.We have found success combining the community non-profit sector with local programs in our community for occupational therapy to provide occupational justice and offerings for this population.We will introduce the needs assessment, program development, program assessment, and outcome measures from participant and parent surveys.By partnering with university students to assist in implementing our program as part of their Level 1 fieldwork through Centralized Service Learning Model (CLSM) they are able to gain hands on experience with our population of young athletes (Toddlers with physical disabilities) and provide support to the athletes to be more independent within the program (Milton & Otty, 2017).This program is foundational for a younger population of children with physical disabilities to build awareness of potential adaptive sports and increase activity levels to prepare for adaptive organized sports as they age.This program aims to create an early onset of advocacy skills that will translate into not only engagement in physical activities but a strong mental and social skill level. Cote-Leclerc and colleagues research concluded adaptive sport athletes show comparable rates of quality of life to that of their same-age peers without physical disabilities (Cote-Leclerc et. al, 2017).Children with physical disabilities who participate in sport programs have higher positive perceptions of health-related quality of life across mental health, physical, and social participation (Shapiro & Malone, 2016).