Leisure time activities allow individuals to rest, enjoy themselves and develop their personality. But they are of special importance to people with intellectual disabilities, as they can develop their social and communication skills while participating in them. Often day-care centres or educational institutions offer a wide range of activities for their users/students. However, there are few organized activities in which they could be involved inclusively. Thus, people with special needs have little experience of integrating into wider social life.
One of leisure time activities is sport. Sport is extremely important in the development of motor skills and abilities, but it also contributes to an individual's social position, health and improvement in quality of life. There was a belief in the past, that people with intellectual disabilities could not participate in sports activities. However, with the help of various organizations, legislation, and raising public awareness through the public media, there has been an increase in range of sport activities for them in recent decades. Sailing is no exception, but this new wave of inclusion is hampered by a lack of suitably trained staff in special pedagogics to lead sailing courses.
Therefore, the aim of this thesis was to make a review of the planning, implementation and adjustments of the sailing course in a selected club, which included two children with a mild intellectual disability. For a holistic insight, we conducted three semi-structured interviews, where we were mainly interested in how the sailing course is planned and implemented and what adjustments were then planned and made. We were also interested in how the trainer would assess the independence and inclusion of the children with mild intellectual disabilities in the sailing course. In the interview with the children, we focused primarily on their sailing experiences, the adjustments that were made for them, and on their inclusion in the group of course participants. We were also interested in what changes and suggestions the participants in the research would recommend. With this case study, we therefore wanted to present an example of good practice of including people with mild intellectual disabilities in inclusive sport and movement activities.
We reached the conclusion that planning of a sailing course takes place in two parts: substantive and organizational. We also found that the selected club does not plan accommodations for people with special needs. The main challenge of course planning is to obtain sufficient information about children whereas the main obstacles in the implementation are the lack of suitable staff for such a heterogeneous group and the complexity and specifics of working with people with special needs (lack of knowledge). The children were only partially independent during the course, as they needed the help of an oral and physical companion. They experienced sailing differently and expressed a desire to change the formation of groups according to gender specifics and the change in implementation of the course itself. The trainer changed the entire way of conducting sailing courses to be less competitive and to place more emphasis on the sport itself. We found that the children felt mostly well during the course and that they did not integrate well into the group.
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