Motor Activity Training Programme
The motor activity training program was created to provide a challenge to those athletes who cannot participate in the official Special Olympic sports competitions. This can be because of lack of skill, functional disabilities and/or challenging behaviour.
The Motor Activity Training Program exists to ameliorate the athletes’ skills and competencies that would open the opportunity for athletes, irrespective of their disability, to participate in sports specific competitions.
The MATP is divided into 7 categories.
Mobility
where the gross motor movement is challenged being in supported walking, rolling on a matt to other skills.
Dexterity
Dexterity is what is known as the fine motor movement. This demands out of the athlete to be accurate, being when they pinch to grasp a bean bag or aiming to throw amongst other abilities.
Striking
Striking is an upper body movement where it incorporates the use of equipment such as baseball bags, tennis rackets etc.
Kicking
Simply put is the skill that improves the athlete’s lower bod’s movement such as kicking a ball or knocking bowling pins down.
Manual Wheelchair
Improving the ability to traverse the environment using a manual wheelchair
Automatic Wheelchair
Same as the manual wheelchair, however with the use of a motorized wheelchair.
Swimming
Lastly this is the skills that challenges the athletes’ ability to improve their swimming ability.
With all this said, a session is typically split into 2, being the skill part which are a concoction of the activities mentioned above, while the second part is a group game activities. All these together produce a fun environment that creates the necessary tools to push the athletes’ to improve, irrelevant of disability.
In Malta’s Invitational Games 2022 the MATP theoretical session will be carried out at Westin Dragonara Hotel on the 12th of May, whereas the the athletes will be participating in a demonstration event that will surely be fun and challenging for all, which will be held at the Tal-Qroqq Sports Hall.
