History of the Special Olympics

Special Olympics is the world’s largest sports organization for intellectually and physically disabled children and adults. It provides year-round training and activities to a large number of participants and Unified Sports partners. Special Olympics competitions at the local, national and regional levels are held throughout the year and all over the world. The Special Olympics organization is recognized by the International Olympic Committee. It organizes the Special Olympic World Games, an international sporting competition for intellectually disabled athletes. The event alternates between summer and winter games in two-year circles. Special Olympics began as a summer day camp called Camp Shriver for children with intellectual and physical disabilities, and turned into a global movement. Different approaches, evaluations, methodologies and advanced studies on this movement have been included in this book. It is a compilation of chapters that discuss the history of and the ideas behind Special Olympics. A number of latest researches have been included in this book to keep the readers up-to-date with the global concepts in this area of study.