Debbie Van Biesen

KU Leuven | ku leuven · Department of Rehabilitation Sciences

Purpose Autistic students at higher education institutions in Ireland have reported feelings of isolation, depression, and disengagement, all of which contribute to health disparities in this population. It is critical to address these issues, given the recent significant increase in the number of Autistic youths enrolling in higher education. To i...

The aim of this review is to explore the relationship between adaptive behaviour (AB) and motor proficiency (MP). Despite AB being one of the core criteria for the diagnosis of intellectual disability, no review into the relationship between AB and MP exists. Of the 23 final studies, 19 supported a relationship between AB (composite score and/or pr...

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of age and intellectual impairment (II) in decision-making in basketball. The current study investigated differences in decision making between equally well-trained adult basketball male players with intellectual impairment (players with II) (n = 93), adults without II (senior) (n = 44) and youth ba...

Purpose:Para-karate has been gaining popularity at a rapid pace; however, it appears that there is currently limited scientific research on the subject. This study aims to examine the preference of katas performed at para-karate top-level events and investigate a connection between the sport class (type of impairment) and the kata selection. Method...

This systematic review synthesized the literature on digital health interventions for the promotion of physical activity (PA) among people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism. From an initial screening of 553 records, 10 studies underwent full-text review. Data were extracted relating to study, intervention, and sample characteristics and...

Dual-task paradigms can provide insights on the structures and mechanisms underlying information processing and hold diagnostic, prognostic, and rehabilitative value for populations with cognitive deficits such as in individuals with intellectual disability (ID). In this paradigm, two tasks are performed separately (single-task context) and concurr...

Opportunities to participate and compete in sports for athletes with intellectual disability (ID) have increased; however, this group still encounters limitations in accessing a comprehensive range of sports. This study addressed the current knowledge on how sport for people with ID is organized and the relationships between the major sport organiz...

This chapter provides an overview of the disability sports landscape in Belgium, with emphasis on Flanders which is the Dutch-speaking part in the north of the country. When it comes to disability sport, Flanders is a region in transition: from a historically fragmented mosaic of many, rather smaller, agents, all playing their role in the organisat...

Introduction After the decision to postpone the Tokyo 2020 Games due to the COVID-19 pandemic, athletes had to adjust to a novel situation with feelings of uncertainty and insecurity. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory, this study was the first to examine whether different motivational profiles among Paralympic athletes can be identified, and to...

Background: Athletes with intellectual disability represent a unique population who experiences the contrasting effects of cognitive deficits and benefits of sports on balance. This study investigated the combined impact of intellectual disability and sport practice on balance. Method: Center-of-pressure excursion in bipedal stance of 2 disabili...

Motivation is essential for adopting and maintaining active lifestyles. This study aims to adapt an instrument that comprehensively screens the degree and type of motivation in Flemish speaking athletes with intellectual disabilities (ID). A translated (SMS-FL), a modified (SMS-FL-ID), and a condensed (SMS-FL-ID-short) version of the Sport Motivati...

Although motor problems are highly prevalent in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), they remain underdiagnosed. Questionnaire-based screening for motor problems could optimize current clinical practice. This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the developmental coordination disorder questionnaire (DCDQ) to screen for co-...

Our aim was to identify the suitability of three assessment tools (i.e., Flanker test, Updating Word Span, and Color Trails Test) for future inclusion in the classification process of elite Paralympic athletes with intellectual disability and to assess the strength of the relation between Executive function (EF) and intelligence. Cognitive and EF a...

Editorial - Introducing Virtus Academy

Purpose We investigated cognitive-motor multitasking in 29 top-athletes with intellectual impairment (II) recruited during the European Championship Games organized by Virtus (World Intellectual Impairment Sports) and 29 control (CT) athletes matched for age, sex, sports practiced and lifetime accumulated practice hours. Methods Participants perfo...

Background: This meta-analysis aims to: (i) describe the pooled prevalence of diabetes in people with intellectual disabilities, (ii) investigate the association with demographic, clinical and treatment-related factors and (iii) compare the prevalence versus age- and gender-matched general population controls. Methods: Pubmed, Embase and CINAHL...

This study explored the association between intelligence and motor skills in children with ASD after controlling for Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and the associations between motor impairment and intellectual disability (ID) in this population. In total, 120 children with ASD (3–16 years; 81.7% boys) completed a standardized...

Purpose Understanding enablers of and barriers for physical activity (PA) participation in people with intellectual disability (ID) is an essential first step to develop effective interventions. This systematic review examined correlates of PA across the socio-ecological model (i.e., intra-personal, inter-personal, environmental and policy level) i...

The present paper describes the conceptual basis of evidence-based classification of para-athletes with intellectual impairment (II). An extensive description of the theoretical and conceptual foundation of the system as currently conceived is provided, as are examples of its applications in the three sports included in the Paralympic programme for...

Pacing places a high demand on intellectual functioning and has been found useful for classification of athletes with intellectual impairments (II). This may also be true in open-loop sports like basketball. The current study aimed to investigate the pacing behaviour of basketball players with and without II. Using time-motion analysis, the activit...

An essential determinant for success in sports is pacing. Cognitive mechanisms like self-regulation and executive functions are strongly related to adequate pacing behaviour, and people with Intellectual Impairment (II) experience shortfalls in those skills. Previous literature in children without II revealed that pacing is at least partly dependen...

The high prevalence of postural instability in individuals with intellectual disability (ID) warrants the need for reliable and practical postural control assessments. Stabilometry is a postural control assessment that has been widely used for clinical populations. However, the scant systematic knowledge about the reliability of stabilometric proto...

Background: High anxiety levels are common in people with intellectual disabilities (ID) and anxiety can affect sport performance, but sport competitive anxiety profiles in athletes with ID are unknown. Methods: A total of 303 athletes; 116 with ID (33% female, M age = 22.64, SD = 3.94), and 187 without ID (54% female, M age = 21.81, SD = 3.23),...

Background: People with intellectual disability have an increased risk for cardiovascular diseases and associated premature mortality. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its components are highly predictive of cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this meta-analysis was to describe the pooled prevalence of MetS and its components in people with intellect...

Purpose: Ingestion of sildenafil citrate has performance-enhancing effects at high altitudes above 3800 m in able-bodied individuals. It is unknown whether it can improve the performance of athletes with spinal cord injury (SCI) at moderate altitudes (<2200 m), relevant to Paralympic competitions. As most men with SCI suffer from erectile dysfunct...

Cross-country skiing is a fast-paced, a cognitively demanding, and a popular sport within international organizations including athletes with intellectual impairment (II); however, research on how the level of II affects skiing performance is limited. The aim of this exploratory study was to compare differences in the overall performance (segment t...

Background: A reliable evaluation of the balance control in persons with intellectual impairment is important for varied reasons, ranging from clinical purposes to eligibility determination for sport participation. The use of force platforms to measure center of pressure (COP) excursion is one of the most common means of measuring balance. There ar...

Athletic identity (AI) has been suggested as a variable that can have an impact on the psychological health of the athletes upon retirement. The aim of this study was to provide more insight on the transition out of elite sport by assessing and comparing the extent of AI and self-esteem in an active group (AG) and a retired group (RG) of Paralympic...

Intelligence has long been associated with chronometric performance measures, such as reaction time (RT); however, few studies have investigated this relation in humans at the lower end of the intelligence range. The purpose of this study is to examine the inter-relation between RT, and intelligence in the population of athletes with mild to modera...

Cognition is important in many sports, for example, making split-second-decisions under pressure, or memorising complex movement sequences. The dual-task (DT) paradigm is an ecologically valid approach for the assessment of cognitive function in conjunction with motor demands. This study aimed to determine the impact of impaired intelligence on DT...

Background: Shot-put is one of the events in which athletes with intellectual impairment compete at the Paralympic Games, since their re-inclusion in 2012. The purpose of this study was to compare the competition performance and investigate differences in release parameters and consistency of performance between high level shot-put throwers with an...

The development of evidence-based eligibility systems in basketball for athletes with intellectual impairment (II) requires investigating the influence of II on performance. Due to this, the present study aimed to compare game-related statistics from II and able-bodied (AB) competitions. The World Men II-Basketball Championship 2013 (n=13 games and...

Purpose: To understand how athletes invest their energy over a race, differences in pacing ability between athletes with and without intellectual impairment (II) were explored using a novel field test. Methods: Well-trained runners (n=67) participated in this study, including 34 runners with II (age = 24.4 ± 4.5 years; IQ = 63.1 ± 7.7) and 33 ru...

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of intellectual impairment (II) on game-related statistics which best contribute to success in basketball. Official game-related statistics were gathered from 6 male teams (n = 63 players) during the 13 games played in the World II-Basketball Championships (Ankara 2013). Variables were normaliz...

Pacing has been defined as the goal-directed regulation of exercise intensity over an exercise bout, in which athletes need to decide how and when to invest their energy. The purpose of this study was to explore if the regulation of exercise intensity during competitive track races is different between runners with and without intellectual impairme...

ABSTRACT Basketball for athletes with intellectual impairment (II) requires the development of evidence-based eligibility systems in order to guarantee equal opportunities to success in this sport and also to have the possibility to be re-included in the Paralympic Program. To do this, it is required to investigate the influence of II on those fund...

Evidence-based classification systems in Paralympic sport require knowledge of the underlying effect of impairment in a specific sport. This study investigated the relationship between cognition and tactical proficiency in 88 well-trained table tennis players with intellectual disability (ID; 29 women, 59 men, M +/- SD IQ 59.9 +/- 9.6). Data were c...

Background: Previous research has shown that cognitive and motor skills are related. The precise impact of cognitive impairment on sport proficiency, however, is unknown. Aims: This study investigated group and individual differences in cognitive profiles in a large cohort of track and field athletes, basketball players, swimmers and table tenni...

The aim of the present study was to identify performance variability in basketball for players with intellectual impairment (II) and to compare it with able-bodied (AB) players. Official game statistics from the 13 games played in the Ankara World II-Basketball Championships (2013) were gathered and descriptive data, variability coefficient (VC), m...

Introduction: In the development of eligibility systems in basketball for athletes with Intellectual Impairment (II), previous studies have described how II-athletes perform in high level basketball. These results were compared with the literature in Able-bodied (AB) competitions. However, data from AB and II- competitions have not been previously...

INTRODUCTION: Athletes with intellectual impairment (II) competed in a broad range of IPC sanctioned events from 1992 to 2000, but shortly after the 2000 Paralympic Games, IPC banned them because of the lack of an evidence-based classification system. During the banned period, the athletes continued competing under INAS (The International Federatio...

The effect of intellectual impairment on sports performance has received limited attention by researchers. As a contribution to closing this gap, the purpose of the present investigation was to examine the differences in tactical proficiency between table tennis players with and without intellectual disabilities (ID). These groups were matched for...

Technical skill proficiency among elite table tennis players with intellectual disabilities (ID) was investigated in this study using two approaches: an off-court simulation testing protocol and an on-court, standardized observational framework during game play. Participants included 24 players with ID (M age = 25 yr., SD = 6; M IQ = 61, SD = 9), t...

A relatively small body of research addresses the effect of intellectual impairment on proficiency in sport. The aim in the present study was to determine whether the technical proficiency of table tennis players (TTP) with and without intellectual disability (ID), matched for years of training experience, are different. The sample consisted of 71...

The aim of this study is to investigate athletic identity, self-esteem and physical self-perceptions in Flemish athletes with a disability, to investigate the mutual relationships between those variables, and to evaluate their stability over time. Flemish athletes (Paralympic level, n = 23; Non-Paralympic Elite level, n = 37) filled out questionnai...

In this study the ability of elite table tennis players with intellectual disability (ID) to adapt their service/return to specific ball spin characteristics was investigated. This was done by examining the performance of 39 players with ID and a reference group of 8 players without ID on a standardized table tennis specific test battery. The batte...

This investigation studied the consistency of the within-cycle torque pattern in hand cycling (1) in subsequent cycles, (2) between different individuals, (3) between different power output levels, and (4) with respect to fatigue. Ten nondisabled male participants performed a progressive peak arm crank ergometry test; a number of 5-minute submaxima...

Down syndrome (DS) is a risk factor for metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. The greater oxidative stress described in DS can increase this risk owing to its potential deleterious effects on insulin sensitivity. We hypothesized that metabolic syndrome or its markers, at rest and during exercise, are more pronounced in young adults with DS...