Recommendations
AIMPA initiatives for promoting physical activity for children and youth with disabilities.
Image Description: A child sitting on a soccer field with a prosthetic leg. They have a purple sweat suit on and are resting their arm on their leg. There is a blurred person in the background.
Organizations Should Provide Families of Children with Disabilities with:
- Clear and consistent definitions of terms such as physical activity, adapted, accessible, integrated, and inclusive.
- Clear and detailed information about your physical activity programs, staff and facilities. Discover our Accessible Physical Activity Checklist!
- Information about the specific benefits of supporting physical activity for children and youth with disabilities.
- Ideas, tools and resources to support physical activity participation, goal setting, planning and progress.
- Information regarding strategies to help address barriers to physical activity participation among children and youth with disabilities.
Toolkits to Support the Use of the Recommendations
We are in the process of developing tools to help organizations use the recommendations. For now, we have created a toolkit to help provide some suggestions for applying each of the recommendations.
Review our English and French toolkits. Clicking the buttons below will re-direct you to a PDF preview in a new tab, with a download option. Please note, these are older documents. We are in the process of creating fully accessible updates.
PDF Toolkit (English)PDF Toolkit (French)
In creating these five recommendations for promoting physical activity for children and youth with disabilities, we partnered with a team of organizations and individuals.
- Archie Allison: Variety Ontario
- Dr. Kelly Arbour-Nicitopoulos: University of Toronto, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education
- Jane Arkell: Active Living Alliance for Canadians with a Disability
- Jennifer Bruce: Canadian Paralympic Committee
- Andrea Carey: INclusion INcorporated
- Christa Costas-Bradstreet: Active Living Alliance for Canadians with a Disability
- Pinder DaSilva: Abilities Centre
- Diane English: Parks and Recreation Ontario
- Lindsay Joseph: Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities
- Andrea Haefele: Mom Beyond the Label
- Bryan Heal: Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment LaunchPad
- Dr. Stephanie Jull : Canucks Autism Network
- Dr. Amy Latimer-Cheung: Queen’s University, School of Kinesiology and Health
- Dr. Jennifer Leo: The Steadward Centre, University of Alberta, Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport and Recreation
- Dr. Kathleen Martin Ginis: Canadian Disability Participation Project, Professor University of British Columbia, Okanagan - School of Health & Exercise Science
- Amanda McKinnon: York University, School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences
- Richard Monette: Active for Life
- James Noronha: Special Olympics
- Patrick O’Connell: Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment LaunchPad
- Roxy O’Rourke: University of Toronto, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education
- Dave Sora: Ontario Parasport Collective; Centre for Accessible Sport and Play
- Christina Swett: Inclusion, Innovation and Accessibility, Abilities Centre
- Dr. Keiko Shikako-Thomas: McGill University, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy
- Dr. Jennifer Tomasone: Queen’s University, School of Kinesiology and Health
- Briana Tomkinson: Active for Life
- Dr. Lauren Tristani: York University, School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences
- Dr. Leigh Vanderloo: ParticipACTION
- Dr. Christine Voss: University of British Columbia Okanagan
- Jonathan Wood: Toronto Accessible Sports Council
Image Description: 16 logos of organizations. From left to right: Abilities Centre ™, Active Living Alliance for Canadians with a Disability, Active for Life ®, Canadian Paralympic Committee, Canucks Autism Network, INclusion INcorporated, MLSE Launchpad, Queen's University, ParticipACTION, Special Olympics Ontario, The Steadward Centre University of Alberta, Toronto Accessible Sports Council, The University of British Columbia Centre for Chronic Diseases Prevention and Management Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Variety ® The Children's Charity of Ontario, and York University.
Checklist Development Team
No project is ever done alone! We'd like to thank the people and organizations who helped develop this checklist.
Authors
School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University:
- Dr. Rebecca Basset-Gunter
- Dr. Lauren Tristani
- Victoria Larocca
- Tharsheka Natkunman
Active Living Alliance for Canadians Living with Disabilities:
- Jane Arkell
- Christa Costas-Bradstreet
Funding
Funding to support the development of the recommendations was provided by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Sport Canada Innovation Fund, and The Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science.
References
Natkunam, T., Tristani, L., Peers, D., Fraser-Thomas, J.L., Latimer-Cheung, A. E., Bassett-Gunter, R.L. (2020). Using a Think Aloud Methodology to Understand Online Physical Activity Information Search Experiences and Preferences of Parents of Children and Youth with Disabilities. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 33(6), 1478-1488.
Bassett-Gunter, R. L., Tristani, L. (June 2020). Getting the message across: A collaborative approach to establishing recommendations for the development and dissemination of physical activity information targeting parents of children with disabilities. York University, Toronto, ON. Available on the CDPP website: Getting The Message Across.
Larocca, V., Arbour-Nicitopoulos, K. P, Tomasone, J. R., Latimer-Cheung, A. E., & Bassett-Gunter, R. L. (2021). Developing and disseminating physical activity messages targeting parents: A systematic scoping review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(13), 7046.