EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING AND BODILY IDENTITIES FORMATION OF YOUTH SPORTS ADAPTED PRACTITIONERS. COMPARISON OF PEOPLE WITH CONGENITAL AND ACQUIRED DISABILITIES.

Abstract

This cross-sectional and randomized block design (RBD) study, after describing the physical self concept in people with motor disabilities who play sports, examined the differences among athletes with congenital and acquired disabilities and assessed the influence of age of disability onset of disability on physical self-concept perceptions. Participants were 201 athletes with acquired motor disabilities and 185 athletes with congenital motor disabilities. Ages ranged from 12-28 years, and athletes were both male and female. For RDB, we used a specific function of SPSS 29.0 to create and compare two random samples of 100 participants with congenital disabilities and 100 participants with acquired disabilities. All participants completed an adapted version of the Physical Self-Description Questionnaire (PSDQ-S; Scarpa et al. 2010), on which we tested group differences with ANOVA. We also used Pearson correlation analysis to examine the relationship between both ‘years without disability’ and dimensions of physical self-concept. All participants achieved positive average scores. Participants with acquired disabilities had higher average physical self-concept scores, relative to those with congenital disabilities. Early onset of physical disability negatively affected self-esteem, and most dimensions of physical self-concept.