Professor, Dr.Hab. V.V. Cheshikhina
Associate professor, Ph.D. V.V. Seleznev
Ph.D. V.A. Cheshikhina
Russian State Social University, Moscow

Keywords: adaptive sports, organizational and methodological foundations, athletes with disabilities.

Introduction. Adaptive sport is becoming increasingly important in modern society. People with disabilities participate in various competitions, and society sees for itself that sport is not a prerogative of healthy people only.  Sports activities enable people with disabilities to arrange their lives in such a way so that they could express themselves, become independent, create conditions for effective self-fulfillment in society.  

The sphere of modern adaptive sports includes various components: management; qualification and training of athletes; material, technical and financial support; staff training; theoretical, methodological, regulatory, program, ideological, health service support and many other things [1-4].

Due to the insufficient legal, economic, theoretical and methodological support of the competitive and training processes of athletes with disabilities we have to use the experience of training athletes without disabilities that does not always lead to achievement of planned results.   

The relevance of this study is proved by the increased competition and a significant increase in density of the results in domestic and international competitions for athletes with disabilities, which needs organizational and methodological foundations for persons with disabilities to be developed, which will be effective for this category of athletes with regard to their health characteristics and developmental needs. These problems cannot be solved without developing new approaches to the organization and methodological support of the training process for athletes with disabilities.

The purpose of the study was to determine the content and structural components of organizational and methodological foundations for training of athletes with disabilities [5]

Materials and methods. The state of the organizational and methodological basics of training of athletes with disabilities was assessed by means of the specially designed questionnaire and a survey of 105 specialists. The respondents were 48 trainers in different sports working with people with disabilities, 15 specialists dealing with the administrative work (directors, head teachers of specialized institutions, heads of adaptive sports schools, specialized children's sport schools, members of Presidium of Sports Federations), 42 university professors engaged in training of specialists in the sphere of adaptive physical culture.

57.5% of male and 42.5% of female specialists were examined. Experience of the subjects in the field of adaptive sport was as follows: up to 5 years – 32.1%, up to 10 years – 20.5%, over 15 years – 47.4%. Of these, 11.4% were Doctors of Education, 23.8% - PhD’s, 9.5% - Merited Trainers of the USSR and Russia, 19% - advanced practice professionals, 8.5% - I category professionals, 6.6% - II category professionals.     

There were 15 questions in the questionnaire, most of which were multiple choice ones. Each of the choices was assessed on a ten-point scale.

In addition to the questionnaire interviews were applied. During the conversations with the leading experts and trainers working with athletes with disabilities the main challenges of improving the modern system of training were detected, issues related to the optimization factors of the training system for athletes with disabilities were discussed.

Results and discussion. As a result of the survey of the adaptive sports experts the following data were obtained (Table 1). 

Most of the respondents assessed the current level of development of adaptive sport in Russia as average and below average (the average rating is 4.6 points on a 10-point scale).

Table 1. Results of the survey of adaptive sport experts, n=105

Conclusions. As seen from the analysis of the survey of 105 specialists in adaptive sport, most of the respondents estimate the current level of development of adaptive sport in Russia as average and below average. Among the indices of organizational and methodological activities with athletes with disabilities they highlight the low level of financial and legal support in adaptive sport.

Inadequate legal and regulatory support of adaptive physical culture and sport at the federal and regional levels hinders optimal manageability, purposefulness and security of the system of adaptive sport, impedes elaboration of a long-term program of development of this system; causes instability of resources’ provision of the sports system in general and on this basis – improvement of means and methods of managing adaptive sport.

As seen from analysis of existing mechanism and sources of financing of adaptive sport and physical culture in the Russian Federation, training of national teams of the Russian Federation in Paralympic and Deaf Olympic sports is not fully provided, and the existing trend of prioritizing financing of Olympic sports led to financing of a number of Paralympic and Deaf Olympic sports being done using the residual principle.   

References

1. Abramova, L.P. Normativnye i rukovodyashchie dokumenty po reabilitatsii invalidov po zreniyu sredstvami fizicheskoy kul'tury i sporta (Regulations and guidelines for the rehabilitation of the visually impaired by means of physical culture and sports). – Moscow: Sovetskiy sport, 2005. – 376 P.
2. Briskin, Yu.A Adaptivny sport (Adaptive sport) / Yu.A. Briskin, S.P. Evseev, A.V. Perederiy. – Moscow: Sovetskiy sport, 2010. – 316 P.
3. Fizicheskaya reabilitatsiya i sport invalidov: normativno-pravovye dokumenty, mekhanizmy realizatsii, prakticheskiy opyt, rekomendatsii (Physical rehabilitation and sport for people with disabilities: legal documents, implementation technology, practical experience, recommendations) / A.V. Tsarik – Moscow: Sovetskiy sport, 2003. – 576 P.
4. Cheshikhina, V.V. Organizatsionno-pedagogicheskie osnovy adaptivnogo fizicheskogo vospitaniya i adaptivnogo sporta invalidov s narusheniem oporno-dvigatel'nogo apparata: uchebno-metod. posobie (Organizational-pedagogical bases of adaptive physical education and adaptive sport for the disabled with musculoskeletal disorders: teaching aid) / V.V. Cheshikhina, O.N. Nikiforova. - Moscow: Publishing House of Russian State Social University, 2013. – 131 P. 

Corresponding author: Kfv-rgsu@yandex.ru