Young athlete Rohan dressed up for the challenge

Seven-year-old Rohan Hubbard knew she wasn’t at the sports centre just to play around. She was there in her red team t-shirt to learn sports skills.

Rohan, from Karori, was one of 12 children taking part in a Special Olympics Young Athletes sport and play programme, which was held at the ASB Sports Centre in Wellington in December.

Mum Bernadette Hubbard says as soon as Rohan saw her produce the red t-shirt each week, she knew what it was for and tried very hard to meet the new challenges of the programme. “I noticed with Rohan that she really wanted to do the activities well,” she says.

“Rohan tries 500 times harder than the average neurotypical child to do things. She is so determined to succeed and to perfect things that she needs to do. She practises things methodically so that she can do them for herself.”

Bernadette says Rohan has been involved in early intervention programmes since she was nine months old. “The Special Olympics Young Athletes programme is a type of early intervention. I know what a massive difference early intervention makes for a child’s physical development as well as social development.”

Special Olympics New Zealand trialled the six-week programme for children between the ages of four and seven with intellectual disabilities. The idea was to introduce basic sport skills, such as such as running, kicking, throwing, balancing and jumping – and in a setting that involved families and carers too.

If the results follow overseas research, these children will develop motor skills twice as fast as children who don’t take part.

David Hibberd, from Special Olympics New Zealand, says all the young athletes developed their skills from week to week. “It was great to see the interaction from the parents and guardians as well.”

He says an evaluation of the programme is under way, including planning how to make the programme available across the country. “We are talking about running something in Auckland in the very near future. We are looking forward to moving the programme forward into other areas in New Zealand.”

The IHC Foundation contributed $8700 towards the Young Athletes pilot project.