Young Athletes Research

Use and customize these charts and graphs to help illustrate some key research findings.

• Benefits for Children with ID Graph (PDF): View this graph that illustrates how children participating in Young Athletes experienced a seven-month gain in motor skills as well as a four-month advantage in development at a follow-up appointment.
• Impact of Young Athletes at the Individual, Family and Community Level (HTML doc): This interactive graph shows how Young Athletes impacts the individual, family and community.
• Young Athletes Key Findings Image (JPG): Download a jpeg of the key findings and associated sources

Share evidence of Special Olympics’ impact through these summaries of Special Olympics research that include ready-to-share printouts designed for Programs.

• Best Stats for Young Athletes (PDF): This one-pager provides the most compelling data points about Special Olympics Young Athletes programming in easy-to-use bullet points and infographics.
• Why Research Young Athletes (PDF): The Young Athletes program began in 2007 and the research already is showing how Young Athletes benefits the participating child and the family.
• Impact on Participants (PDF): Research conducted by Special Olympics and its partners has found that Young Athletes improves the motor skills of participants.
• Impact on the Family and Community (PDF): Families benefit in a number of ways, including helping parents understand what ID is and raising parent expectations.
• Young Athletes Research - Key Findings (PDF): Young Athletes is making positive impacts on the short- and long-term lives of participants and families who participate such as raised expectations and increased understanding.

Access research articles that go into more detail on some of the findings shared in the overview section.

• Evaluation of Young Athletes Program 2006 (web page): Findings in Azerbaijan, Chile, Israel, Panama, Paraguay, Romania, United States and Venezuela indicate that Young Athletes has a significant impact on both the young people who participate and their parents, sometimes in unintended ways.
• Young Athletes Intervention: Impact of motor development (PDF): This 2011 study found that children who participated in Young Athletes exhibited mean gains of 7 - 9 months on Peabody Developmental Motor Scale subscales compared to mean gains of 3 - 5 months in the control group.
• Young Athletes Globalization Project: Final Report (PDF): Findings released in 2014 from Kenya, Tanzania, Venezuela and Romania show that, similar to the results from earlier U.S. studies, children participating in Young Athletes experienced significant improvements in motor skills.
• Young Athletes Globalization Project: Executive Summary (PDF): Visit this three-page document that highlights the key findings from the 2014 evaluation of Young Athletes programming in Kenya, Tanzania, Venezuela and Romania.