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Program helps classify ID athletes

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Academics at Loughborough University are working with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to develop a robust computer test to help classify athletes with a learning disability.

The computer program is being developed by Dr Stephan Bandelow and colleagues in the Applied Cognitive Research Centre, part of the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences (SSEHS), and was a key element in the IPC’s decision to consider the re-inclusion of athletes with an intellectual disability (ID athletes) to the Paralympic Games.

The London 2012 Paralympic Games will be the first time that ID athletes are allowed to compete at an international multi-disability sports event since the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney, Australia.

Bandelow and his colleagues independently developed the automated touch-screen test and have analysed more than 700 athletes worldwide during competition and in training in order to validate it.

At the 2009 INAS-FID Global Games in the Czech Republic alone, a team of 13 volunteers tested more than 400 athletes over one week. Researchers have also enlisted help from specialist East Midlands schools and organisations including Mencap Gateway and the Linkage Community Trust in order to verify the functionality of the program.

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