Coaches' Perceptions and Proposed Solutions for Challenging Behaviors: Implications for Athletes with Hidden Disabilities

Within sports, youth with hidden disabilities (HD) may have difficulty with understanding/following directions, physical coordination, remembering plays, and sustaining attention. These behaviors are often considered challenging for coaches. While previous research has addressed coaches' self-reports through surveys related to efficacy and coaching athletes with HD, they did not address questions regarding coaches' proposed strategies for addressing such challenging behaviors; such research may provide better understanding of their perceptions as well as information regarding coaches' knowledge about accommodating learning differences among their athletes. Therefore, the purpose of this descriptive study is to investigate coaches' perceptions of practice situations involving athletes exhibiting various challenging behaviors and coaches' proposed solutions to addressing these situations. Fifty-five youth sport coaches viewed four practice situations and completed questionnaires following the video clips. Results found that while coaches could often point to the need for demonstrations and checking for understanding, they often did not consider that the coach may have given faulty directions and would instead recommend repeating the instructions to make sure the athlete understood. Other times, the coach indicated that the athlete must not know terminology or perhaps had not been taught the skill used in the drill. Interestingly, these coaches all reported very high efficacy in: 1) appropriately redirecting the athlete(s), 2) effectively making accommodations to coach the athlete(s), and 3) preventing the athlete from interfering with coaching the athletes. This research continues to underscore the need for improved coaching education.