1. The Paralympic legacy: what will it do for people with intellectual disabilities? Prof. Jan Burns (Canterbury Christ Church University)

2. Special Olympics INAS Paralympics 170 countries 32 sports 3.5 athletes 51 countries 12 sports 3,300 athletes 20 ? countries 3 sports 120? athletes INAS - the International Federation for sport for para- athletes with an intellectual disability www.inas.orgwww.inas.org

3. INAS Special Olympics Paralympics

4. 20 million+ viewing public

5. The Legacy Aspiration for London 2012: “influence the attitudes and perceptions of people to change the way they think about disabled people” Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 2010 p.3

6. The Legacy A large claim However, the organisers do not set out the pathway to this outcome Explanations may lie in research on attitude change

7. Previous research A large quantity of previous research using social psychological theories of attitude change Factors implicated include:  Increasing positive contact with the target group  Increasing legitimate positive knowledge about the target group London 2012 a massive social intervention

8. A study investigating the legagcy claim Joanna Ferrara (Canterbury Christ Church University) Prof. Jan Burns (Canterbury Christ Church University) Dr Hayley Mills (Canterbury Christ Church University Aim: to investigate whether it is possible to change attitudes towards people with ID by exposure to paralympic performance.

9. N= 97 3 Measures + demographic questionnaire N= 97 3 Measures + demographic questionnaire Experimental Comparison Time 1Time 2 N= 52 3 Measures + debrief N= 62 3 Measures + debrief Intervention Paralympic footage + Information DESIGN

10. Measures VariableMeasureAuthor Implicit attitudes towards disability Disability Attitudes Implicit Association Test’ (DA-IAT) Pruett & Chan, 2006 Explicit attitudes towards ID The Community living attitude scale- mental retardation (CLAS-MR) Henry, Keys & Jopp, 1999 Social DesirabilityThe balanced inventory of desirable responding (BIDR). Paulhus, 1991

11. Results 1. Groups were comparable on all measures and demographics 2. Significant positive improvement in implicit attitudes between T1 and T2, irrespective of group 3. Total explicit attitude change scores not significant, but subscale ‘empowerment’ was, again irrespective of group 4. Regression T 1 – main predictors of positive attitude, previous contact and gender, not social desirability 5. Regression T 2 – no significant predictors

12. Conclusions and implications Tentative support that watching Paralympics might improve attitudes, but equally so will watching the Olympics This may be a result of such stimuli evoking feelings of ‘empowerment’ Even quite a small intervention can have an effect, the Olympics/Paralympics is a very large intervention Do not know a) how long these effects last, b) how generalisable the results are

13. Support our athletes in London 2012 Thank you Questions?