Adapted Physical Education

Children with special needs face real barriers to ordinary, unrestricted physical education — but the answer is not to exclude them. It is to adapt the programme so that they, too, can take part safely and successfully. That is the idea of Adapted (Adaptive) Physical Education, which this section examines in three parts: its meaning, its aim, and its objectives.

Adapted physical education is also the arena where India's para-athletes and Special Olympians have shown just how much is possible. Deepa Malik, a Padma Shri and Arjuna Award winner, became India's first female para-athlete to win a Paralympic medal — a silver in the shot put at the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games — after being left paralysed from the waist down by a spinal tumour, proving that physical limitations cannot deter a strong mind. Yash Singh, an autistic swimmer, became the first Indian to win a medal at the Special Olympics World Summer Games 2015 in Los Angeles, taking bronze in the 25-metre back …