Physical Education and Young People with Learning Disabilities

Have you ever thought of how to teach physical education to students with learning disabilities?

Halyey Fitzgerald wrote a very interesting article, "Stories about Physical education from Young People with Learning Disabilities", which outlined 3 stories of students with learning disabilities (SWLD) in England which highlighted their negative experiences with physical education.

This article brings to our attention as teachers or undergraduate teachers sutdents with learning disabilities perspectives on physical education which highlights to us that maybe our teaching strategies need to change to accompany SWLD.

One student (Dave aged 13) "dreaded pe". This particular student attempted all possible measures to avoid attending school so that he did not have to participate in physical education. He wanted to avoid it because he had difficiculties conducting tasks and felt socially unaccpeted in the class. Another student Adam felt anxiety about revealing physical education reports to his Father as he felt he had to live up to the expectations of his brothers. Lastly Mary emphasises a dilemma in decision making and her concerns regarding the tensions that may emerge with her friends if she opts to do physical education.

How do we as teachers accomodate physical education lesson for students with learning diasbilities?
How do we change these negative thoughts about physical education to become positive ones?
Is it possible to incorporate sporting acitivies that SWLD can complete?

These are many questions that I believe can be answered and done.

We are taught how to plan and conduct lessons for physical education, however there is little or none to refer to help SWLD want to participate in physical education. There is many research including this article that outlines their behaviours and thoughts to particualr aspects, therefore we can consider these behaviours into our teaching lessons.

I believe every student should want to participate, should be sociall accepted and should feel no external pressures. Teachers who have SWLD in their class should change their teaching methods to accomodate for these students and to not ignore them. Networking may be a positive approach to take. Creating a connection between parents, teachers, students, peers, and teachers aide to develop a positive way to alter the negative emotions SWLD have for physical education. This can be done with regular meetings to discuss the positives and negatives of different teaching methods and to identify and progress and success through working as a team.

Reference: Hayley Fitzgerald and Annete Stride (2012): Stories about Physical Education from Young People with Disabilities, International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 59:3, 283-293.