Leisure and Sport Activities among People with Disabilities: Opportunities and Challenges

Dear Colleagues,

Participation in leisure activities and sport offers immediate and longer-term benefits, such as enjoyment, learning new skills, improvements in physical and mental health, social interaction and the development of a sense of identity and belonging. Previous research has begun to evidence the diverse participation of people with different disabilities in leisure activities, both within segregated and mainstream spaces.

This Special Issue aims to move this field forward by compiling studies about “what works” to enable the leisure and sport participation of this diverse group. Particularly, there is an interest in studies describing novel approaches to enabling participation in people’s (adults that are 18+ years of age) preferred leisure and sport activities, including challenges and enabling factors, as well as different outcomes. Submissions are welcome for all impairment types, although we are particularly interested in understanding the experience of adults with intellectual disabilities, autism and/or neurodiversity, and from different settings/countries. We recognize that people with disabilities in general, and particularly adults with intellectual disabilities, autism and other developmental disabilities are a heterogeneous group. We have deliberately chosen a broad definition to move attention away from individual impairments and toward the commonalities between individuals based on shared histories of care, exclusion and discrimination. Such an approach reflects how services, interventions and activities to support these groups very often span different disabilities, and so will ensure that any learning provides the most utility. Methodologically, all forms of empirical research, literature reviews and papers that analyze policy implementation, conceptual frameworks and research methodologies will be considered.

Dr. Kris Southby
Prof. Dr. Matthias Grunke
Guest Editors

Janine Bracht
Guest Editor Assistant

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Disabilities is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.