Special Olympics gives small children a big leg-up

Young children are getting a big leg-up from a Young Athletes Sport and Play Programme running in Wellington in the lead-up to Christmas.

Special Olympics New Zealand is trialling the six-week programme for children between the ages of four and seven with intellectual disabilities. And, 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 is leading the programme. He says the focus is about introducing basic sport skills in a fun and welcoming environment. The young athletes are also enjoying the activities with their siblings, families and friends. The sessions are being held on Sunday mornings, which encourages families to participate.

The activities are designed to develop basic sport skills such as running, kicking, throwing, balancing and jumping. There are 12 children signed up for this New Zealand launch of the Young Athletes Programme – two children aged four, two aged five, three aged six and five aged seven.

But David says there are closer to 40 people filling the court at the ASB Sports Centre in Wellington each week, including family members, lead coaches, five students from the New Zealand Institute of Sport and three Special OIympics Athlete Leaders – Michael Holdsworth, Oscar Stace and Vicki Brown. The three are all champion sportspeople and play an important role in training the young athletes. Michael has competed in swimming and skiing, Oscar in basketball and swimming and Vicki in athletics.

The Young Athletes Programme started after two weeks of initial training for the Athlete leaders and students, to develop their coaching skills, followed by six weeks of sessions. David says each session is reviewed to feed into the following session and families receive weekly updates throughout. After the final session the programme will be evaluated, and recommendations made about how best to introduce the programme more widely.

David says athletes must be eight years old to join Special Olympics clubs. He says part of the review of this programme will be the pathways that can be introduced afterwards. “It’s great getting these young athletes active, it is important this continues. We hope that some of the fundamental skills learnt during this programme will also be tried out in the home, at the park or anywhere else.

“Initial feedback received is that the programme is making a positive impact,” David says.

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