Eileen

While I am a true believer that inclusion in sports is successful, given I was a three-season runner, I feel it is important for you to be aware there may be some bumps in the road as you become a success story. Being part of a team successfully requires many important skills, including having appropriate social skills/behavior, being a great communicator, a strong listener, and possessing a high level of determination, which can be for some students with an NVLD or similar disability at first challenging and very disheartening. However, in the end, I believe all the successful memories will outweigh the hard moments.
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At the beginning of my varsity cross-country and track career, I was asked a lot, “why are you a runner?” as I worked so hard just to finish near the bottom. Later on, the question changed to “how did you get your coaches to like and respect you”? I understood where they were coming from in many ways as I was working hard just to finish the race while teammates were competing for top finishes. However, it was so disappointing that they couldn’t see the full picture of why I never gave up running. Couldn’t they see running lead to so many personal and social gains and learning many life lessons?

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There is nothing that frustrates me more than reading that few people with an NVLD or a similar disability are fully included in sports during the high school years. As my Cross-Country and Track coaches proved 20 years ago, in a sport like running we can have inclusion since it is all about doing your best and supporting all runners. So as you read this I hope you understand why I strongly believe this percentage needs to be so much higher.
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One of the hardest things about having an NVLD can be participating in Physical education, especially at the secondary level. What is often overlooked is that accommodations/modifications can be made for NVLD students to make gym class more enjoyable, and if done correctly, their classmates don’t even know it. This can be done by having a meeting with your gym teacher ahead of time to choose activities you can do for each unit so you won’t be faced with having to choose between two activities that include so many gross motor and hand-eye coordination skills, such as volleyball or Badminton.
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Overcoming NVLD, my most challenging years were 7th grade through the beginning of 10th grade. I was becoming more and more aware of my disability since my sister’s achievements were around me quite regularly. For example, she was a starter on the basketball team, so the highlights often included her, and she was Vice President of our school’s service club, so her picture was often in our local paper for that. Due to this, it was hard for me to understand if my teachers and coaches really liked me or just felt sorry for me because I wasn’t gifted like my sister. I struggled to understand that each student has their positives and that each educator and coach enjoys the individual for a different reason.
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One of the reasons why inclusion in sports is so rare is that sports are a privilege, not a right like education is. As a result, inclusion isn’t a common practice for those with NVLD as it requires a lot of resources and effort from the support staff and coaches for something that isn’t a requirement. However, I believe that parents, resource room teachers, counselors, and coaches need to become more open to encouraging those with an NVLD or similar disability to join the appropriate sports team so that more students can enjoy the privilege and reap the benefits of being part of a team too.
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Growing up, my parents never kept me from being involved in the community and at school as they were strong believers that inclusion needs to occur in all settings. Through this experience I had a great group of peer and adult support and was never a target for bullying. Yet it still brought challenges as on occasion as the resource room teachers didn’t quite understand why I was getting the extra attention from peers and teachers.
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One of the hardest things about overcoming an NVLD is that you have significant weaknesses and unique strengths so you need to figure out how to manage the two. Due to this you should remember when making some decisions about your IEP it is okay to say no at times.  While having too many services and taking less challenging courses may seem beneficial, it can do more harm than good. Since it can negatively impact your self-esteem as you are reminded of your disability too much and you can feel you can’t achieve as much as your peers.
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In my previous piece I wrote about my biggest disappointments growing up in the small town of Ogdensburg. That was while inclusion was so important, there were always pieces missing. This is because they generally went for partial inclusion rather than full inclusion.

For example during my high school years we had C courses which were the least challenging and just for resource room students for English and Social studies. They included support of a resource room teacher, teacher’s aide, and sometimes a speech therapist. Due to these classes being limited to resource room students these students weren’t full inclusion students and for some students this was a mistake.
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