For the past 18 years, Dr. Dean Ravizza has hosted a two-hour adaptive learning lab for local K-12 students. Although the program reached hundreds of participants, it had limitations.
“We were able to offer wonderful programming for students with intellectual disabilities, but children with physical disabilities didn’t have the same opportunities,” says Ravizza, professor of physical education teacher education (PETE) and adapted physical education at Salisbury University (SU).
To address the challenge, Ravizza applied for a $25,000 Direct Effect Quality of Life Grant from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation to purchase eight sport wheelchairs and increase the availability and accessibility of adaptive sports for the university and the local community.
“A primary goal is helping SU’s physical education students learn to work with adaptive sports in a hands-on fashion,” says Ravizza. “These future teachers can then go into a school system and push for the inclusion of adaptive sports in general education programming.”
The new equipment allowed for the addition of four wheelchair sports (basketball, tennis, lacrosse and rugby) into the university’s adaptive sports curriculum. To date, over 100 PETE students have used the wheelchairs as part of their coursework. Many students noted the four-week adaptive sports module as one of their most impactful learning experiences.
“Many students commented that researching and teaching adaptive sports increased their knowledge and confidence to include adaptive sports in their future general physical education settings,” says Ravizza. Several PETE students have also integrated adaptive sports into the weekly lessons they deliver at SU to local homeschool students, two of whom have spina bifida.
“We tend to make accommodations for the student with the disability to participate the way their same-age peers are. But what we don’t do is flip that and have the general population participate like their same-age peers with disabilities,” says Ravizza. “I want to prepare my students to be able to do both when they are in their own classrooms.”