Comments on: Paralympics To Vote On Inclusion Of Athletes With Intellectual Disabilities http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2009/11/20/paralympics-vote/6246/ Developmental Disability News Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:23:44 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: twinkie1cat http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2009/11/20/paralympics-vote/6246/comment-page-1/#comment-843 twinkie1cat Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:54:04 +0000 http://www.disabilityscoop.com/?p=6246#comment-843 Special Olympics is essentially non-competitive. It is often frankly inspid. Everybody gets a ribbon and the athletes are grouped by ability, so at the local level, at least, everyone wins. It is more of a fun thing and well suited to many lower functioning--moderately retarded and below and multihandicapped. High school kids often go to meet the opposite sex and have a day out of school. I knew a guy who played basketball in Special Olympics but was also MVP on his high school baseball team. Many people with cognitive disabilities, especially the mildly retarded, can be extremely competitive and yet might be excluded from school teams because of their special education placement. Autistic students can be competitive in sports that require a great deal of concentration such as bowling and golf and yet not be welcomed in groups of "typical" people. When you consider that Mike Tyson was slow in school, probably MID, and could not get his GED while in prison because of his reading, you can see what excellent athletes they can be. So let MIDs, competitive MOIDs, and people with autism into Paralympics in sports in which they can be competitive and modify things like instructions, cues and sometimes the environment in which they play their sports to meet their needs. Remember Forrest Gump---"Run Forrest Run". Special Olympics is essentially non-competitive. It is often frankly inspid. Everybody gets a ribbon and the athletes are grouped by ability, so at the local level, at least, everyone wins. It is more of a fun thing and well suited to many lower functioning–moderately retarded and below and multihandicapped. High school kids often go to meet the opposite sex and have a day out of school. I knew a guy who played basketball in Special Olympics but was also MVP on his high school baseball team.

Many people with cognitive disabilities, especially the mildly retarded, can be extremely competitive and yet might be excluded from school teams because of their special education placement. Autistic students can be competitive in sports that require a great deal of concentration such as bowling and golf and yet not be welcomed in groups of “typical” people. When you consider that Mike Tyson was slow in school, probably MID, and could not get his GED while in prison because of his reading, you can see what excellent athletes they can be.

So let MIDs, competitive MOIDs, and people with autism into Paralympics in sports in which they can be competitive and modify things like instructions, cues and sometimes the environment in which they play their sports to meet their needs. Remember Forrest Gump—”Run Forrest Run”.

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