LAUSR

People with intellectual, developmental, physical, psychiatric and sensory disabilities are often on the fringe of society that disposes them to pockets of isolation living with family members, in supported living facilities funded by local, state and federal agencies, or in low resource communities where access to active living opportunities is limited or nonexistent. In the aggregate, people with disabilities make up one of the largestminority groups in the U.S. with prevalence data ranging from 15 to 20% of the U.S. population (CDC, 2013). Recent statistics show that they have one of the highest rates of unemployment (Brucker and Houtenville, 2015), physical inactivity (Carroll et al., 2014), and poorer health status (Dixon-Ibarra and Horner-Johnson, 2014; Krahn et al., 2015) compared to any other subgroup in our society. And many people who acquire a disability never make the switch from ‘patient’ to ‘participant.’ They are often anchored to a healthcare system that does an excellent job of diagnosing the condition and providing rehabilitation andmedications to treat andmanage it, but upon discharge, healthcare professionals are not given the time nor resources necessary for connecting their patients to active living programs in their community, leaving a huge gap between rehabilitation and the ‘life after’ rehabilitation (Rimmer, 2012). Individuals born with a disability do not fare much better, facing similar challenges in accessing recreation, sports and physical activity programs (Rimmer and Marques, 2012). The key attributes of success among children and youth – strength, endurance, power, agility and coordination – are often a notch below children without disabilities, and most communities are unaware or uninterested in adapting their programs so that childrenwith andwithout disabilities can play together in the same park or on the same sports field or playground (Rimmer