Increasing meaningful participation of children with disability in little athletics: development of a more inclusive competition structure

Integrated sports, where children with and without disability participate together, can foster social inclusion. Little Athletics Australia (LAA), a national children’s sports program, traditionally offers children with disability separate “Multiclass” events (based on international classification systems), or participation in mainstream events without adjustment to the contest. With an aim of developing new rules for children with disability to compete in mainstream Little Athletics, we developed assessment criteria and considered four sports models to identify the optimal structure for fair and meaningful contests. “Personal best” (PB) contests were closest to our assessment criteria, as they provide opportunities for children with and without disability to compete with and against each other in parallel with first-past-the-post and Multiclass systems. With formal implementation strategies for presenting competition results and support for local uptake and adaptation, PB contests can provide nondiscriminatory sporting events that could increase fair and meaningful inclusion of children with disability in Little Athletics and other sports.