The physical literacy of post-primary school adolescents who report having a disability

We recently published an article in Quest exploring the physical literacy of adolescents in Ireland who self-reported having a disability. The study looked at physical literacy in adolescents with and without disabilities, and examined how physical literacy differed by gender, age group, and socioeconomic status.

Physical literacy is the foundation for lifelong physical activity and contains three main domains: 1) cognitive (knowledge and understanding), 2) affective (motivation and confidence) and 3) physical competence. We found that adolescents who had no disabilities consistently reported higher physical literacy scores across all three domains, while adolescents who reported having a motoric disability and those with multiple disabilities consistently reported lower physical literacy scores across the domains.

We found that females across the board reported lower confidence and physical competence than males, with the difference between males and females for physical literacy scores greater among those without disabilities. For age-group, younger adolescents who reported having a disability had lower physical competence scores than older adolescents, but no other differences were found based on age for physical literacy in adolescents. For socioeconomic status, adolescents with lower socioeconomic status had lower physical literacy scores across domains, and the impact of socioeconomic status was greater for those with disabilities than those without.

Overall, our results suggest that adolescents with disabilities, especially those who report multiple disabilities and motor disabilities, may face greater barriers to developing their physical literacy than adolescents without disabilities, or adolescents who report just one disability type. Gender and socioeconomic status also appear to impact physical literacy, to the detriment of females and those of lower socioeconomic status. About a quarter of school-going children and adolescents in Ireland have at least one special educational need. Where schools focus on developing physical literacy, for example through their PE programmes, programme and policymakers, along with educators need to be aware of the interplay between disability, gender, socioeconomic status and physical literacy, so that efforts to develop physical literacy actually benefit all adolescents.