Athletes with visual or hearing impairments - Blog #9

 After doing a lot of research and looking around I noticed that there aren’t any programs in our area directed at children with hearing or visual impairments to be able to compete in sports. I looked on Google, LinkedIn, and Facebook trying to find programs in my area that would be able to cater to a child with visual or hearing impairments who wish to play sports. I have a little cousin who is a sophomore in high school and she attends Absegami. Her name is Emily and she went deaf in 2008 from a severe bacterial meningitis infection that ended up taking her hearing. Although she isn’t a very big sports girl she does participate in clubs and certain athletics at Absegami High School along with able-bodied athletes. I asked her a couple of questions in regard to her sports career and how she was able to get on the team with her disability. She explained to me that, even though they don’t offer anything directly for her disability, she was able to sit down with the sports, Director and the coach of her team with her mom to be able to discuss her disability and how it could affect her while playing sports she said that it didn’t seem to be much of an issue that she was deaf and the coach and athletic Director were more than happy to have her on the team. She now does colorguard and dance for her school. She dances for Friday night football games and does routines with the color guard for the band as well. The other people on her team are very accepting of her and treat her just like one of them, which makes her feel very included, and that’s all she ever wanted when she got into her sport.

I wish that there were more programs in the area that offered children to be able to get onto sports with other kids that are like them. Even though my little cousin was granted the opportunity to be able to play sports that she wanted to, she doesn’t play with anybody who has the same disability that she does. Even though my little cousin was granted the opportunity to be able to play sports that she wanted to. She doesn’t play with anybody who has the same disability that she does. Emily would be able to have a better time playing sports if she was around people who whom she could relate. Below are pictures of a photoshoot that my beautiful cousin got done to advocate for the disability and bring awareness to it.

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