Cognitive issues are one of the major effects of intellectual impairment. Hélène Parmentier, sister and coach of the Belgian Paralympic S-14 swimmer Aymeric Parmentier shared some of those issues Aymeric faces due to his impairment in a match day environment with Virtus reporter Mousumi Mazumdar.

Mousumi – Hi Helen. You are the sister of Aymeric Parmentier, who is an S-14 Paralympic Swimmer and you are also his coach. Can you tell us, about his childhood and his impairment affected him, especially in his training?

Hélène –  Hello Mousumi. I’m not really sure how to answer it because, you know, I know him since we are little. I grew up with him so I’m used to it. But I know that when we are training, sometimes I have to repeat a lot of things. Repeat, repeat, and that’s when you want something to happen, maybe take three months, maybe it will be six months, we don’t know at first, because sometimes you just find the right words and then it’s perfect. But then sometimes we just push and push and push and it never happens. Then someday we don’t know what we did and it’s done. So, it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy to do it.

Mousumi – And how long have you been training him?

Hélène –  I’ve been training him since 2015, I guess, when it was his first World championship because it was difficult for our club to manage both planification and as I was the only one who was free to travel with him a lot of times so I took the job.

Mousumi – Why did you decide to coach him?

Hélène –  Because no other coach was keen to go with him. They saw it like a waste of time, you know. They just wanted to go to the Belgium championships and other championships and it was really sad for us because we saw that it was a world championship for it was a great big achievement, but not for them. So luckily for me, now I’m going to the Paralympic games and it feels great.

Mousumi – And he mentioned that he participated for the first time in the Paralympics in Tokyo. Has the perception of those coaches changed after he became a Paralympian?

Hélène –  Yeah, I got a lot of messages saying that now they want Aymeric to be in their team and they are going to make him to competition. But, now I don’t want to leave him. I have put so much effort and made him into a Paralympian.

Mousumi – And can you tell us how he feels before a competition? Does he feel pressure before the event or is he very calm, can you talk us through his competition time?

Hélène –  No, he has a lot of pressure his pressure. Aymeric loves to follow his habits, so I know it, so you know things have to be clear and stay in the right order. But of course, when you are in a competition, anything can happen. And so I feel to minimize the risk, you know, and I know what to do, what will be difficult for him and so I anticipate it. So everything will be cool for him, but when he’s going to the call room, I’m not there anymore, so he has to make the effort by himself and that’s where it’s going to be difficult for him.

Mousumi – Has he ever faced problems inside the call rooms?

Hélène –  Yes, lots of problems because he likes to be in his bubble. But sometimes other swimmers are putting pressure on him because they are sitting too close or making some loud noises, you know, there’s a lot of things we have to work on it. And,  sometimes he just feels pressured because he doesn’t know if he’s in the right heat because he doesn’t speak English, and sometimes you don’t have your number on your chair, so it’s not something that you have to think, plus, to swim, you know he has to think about everything and then he is behind his starting block and sometimes he cannot focus on the race because of everything that happened just before.

Mousumi – So as we see, there are assistants or supporters for other para-athletes. Do you think it’s important for athletes with an intellectual impairment to have support to guide them through this?

Hélène –  Yes, I think so. They need some support because when you have people on a wheelchair, you don’t say to them- “no, make an effort and walk”, you know. And for them, because they are able-bodied, they have to make that effort. But if they could do things without needing additional support, they won’t be in para-swimming, they will be in mainstream swimming at the Olympics. So I think it’s a bit unfair for them, yeah.

Mousumi – And do you think it’s difficult for people to understand what athletes with intellectual impairment go through because their impairment is invisible?

Hélène –  Yes, it is. We have lots of reflection on this, even when we are at our pool and swimming and he doesn’t see another swimmer and just swims across him/her because he didn’t see them. It makes other people angry. And I try to explain that it wasn’t made on purpose and it’s so, so difficult to explain that even if it doesn’t show his face, there is an impairment he has, you know.

Mousumi – How can we support these athletes?

Hélène –  I already thought about it and I think that maybe for example in the call room it would be great to have pictograms. You know when they are entering the call room they are asked- show me your cap, show me your goggles, show me your swimsuit. But it’s in English so maybe if you had some image of this to be easier. And maybe we can just. Translator, but also for them it will be best. And yeah, and try to put the number on the chair, on the call room, that’s very important.

Mousumi – Anything else like outside the call room? From the official side or from in the rulebooks you think something is necessary, which if we adapt to it can help and support?

Hélène –   Yeah, when we were in France in the general room. For example, there was some picture on it or some flags, so he knows where he has to go where it’s his right place. That makes things easier for him. And I also think that when they have to pull them back, for example, sometimes it’s difficult because he has difficulty with coordination. So if you do official can help it would be great.

Mousumi– And we have come across athletes who used to train with mainstream sports athletes. Sometimes this works well but sometimes not. Did Aymeric have a similar experience?

Hélène –  Yeah, I think that when we begin to swim a lot, we had to change the clip where he was in a disability club and there he has a lot of friends, you know, because they had the same topic, the same games and they could talk together, but they had only two training per week, so it was not enough. So we tried to find another club with mainstream swimmers and yeah, it was very difficult for him because he wasn’t able to be himself. He was left a bit on the corner because he couldn’t find any enjoyment in the conversation and so on. Then we tried to find a way that two times a week go to the previous club so that he can speak with his friends and the rest of the week he practices with the mainstream athletes. We tried to find a balance in his training schedule which was very important for him.

Mousumi – Is there any message you would like to give to other sisters or family members who have someone with intellectual impairment?

Hélène –  It’s a difficult job because you have to put a lot of your own time into it and sometimes you don’t have any recognition, but it is worth it.

Intellectual impairment is an invisible disability which makes it difficult for people to understand the problems people who are affected by it have in their daily life.

Imagine spending hours and days learning a particular skill today and forgetting how to perform it tomorrow, or not being able to tell people that you forgot what they told you a few hours ago. Maybe its difficult to understand or fill out a simple form without getting help from someone else. These are just a few issues athletes with intellectual impairment might face each day.

Whilst athletes with physical or sensory impairments are often able to communicate and make people understand what they need help with, people with an intellectual impairment often find it more difficult to communicate problems, to share their feelings or ask for help, which can affect their performance.

Virtus Ambassador and Paralympic champion, Jessica-Jane Applegate has been advocating and raising awareness of intellectual impairment for more than a decade now. Jessica was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome – a form of autism – when she was in secondary school. Talking to various newspapers and TV channels, Jessica-Jane shared her daily struggles on many occasions. She shared how she really struggles with day-to-day things such as understanding training sets, reading sessions, reading a pace clock and remembering technique.

‘I forget what I’d learned to do the day before and I have poor concentration. I forget equipment or misplace it and cannot always communicate well. This is why I am in the classification of S14 (swimmer with an intellectual impairment) and race against the other S14s. We all have the same problems.’

“I get confused and frustrated easily but it works both ways. Sometimes I’m frustrated because I can’t explain what I mean and other times I have no idea what people are trying to tell me. This affects me on a daily basis and I am very lucky to have such a supportive team around me.”

Applegate added: “I and my mum are really close. We do loads of stuff together and she does so much for me. From all the driving, my website, my bookings, my paperwork, my race entries, everything really. I love her, my dogs and my geckos so much.”

Jessica was born with several underdevelopments, the main one was a tube in the larynx where she was very sick with breathing problems for several years. One of her legs is shorter than the other one and it also has a hole in the bone, and the athlete already had many surgeries on that leg since she was a child.

“Jess has had lots of operations on her feet. Throughout her whole childhood and adulthood, she has had many surgeries. Literally, nine weeks before competing in Rio, she had throat surgery. Several weeks before the London Paralympics she had surgery. It has just been her whole life. We don’t know any different. When you are in that environment, and you see it that way, you get used to it and I wouldn’t want to change her for anything” Jessica’s mother – Dawn Applegate told IPC.

She also has femoral retroversion and all of these additional health conditions make training harder for the swimmer to train.

Bronze Medallist Jessica-Jane Applegate GBR from Tokyo 2020 P.C- OIS

“I have femoral retroversion (positional deformity) in just one hip so I have really struggled to
do the breaststroke technique as it has to be simultaneous. And with uneven legs, one hip that turns in when the other doesn’t, restricted movement in my dorsiflex (bending the foot upwards) but hypermobility (large range of movement) in my ankle, it’s been a huge challenge.”

Jessica considers her coach Alex Pinniger as a father figure to her, who not only trains her but also ensure that they stay connected pre and post-events. She said, “Most of the time Alex and I get on brilliantly. He always says he doesn’t get stressed but he does – he just won’t admit it, ha! Sometimes we argue but we always talk things through. He is very understanding.’

“My whole pool training and gym schedule is a set routine which then leads to everything else being a routine.

“I have a race plan which my coach and I will go through over and over again until I remember it and I also have some prompt cards made up just to remind me of what I should be doing.”

Fighting and surviving through all the adversities in her life, Jessica has already won two gold, two silver and three bronze at the Paralympic Games and 38 international medals altogether, but she says she is not done yet.

“It’s really nice to do something that you enjoy as well as get medals along the way”

Jessica shares a very special message for the young athletes who looks unto her-

“Just keep going and as long as you enjoy it, keep doing what you love and hard work always pays off and you never know what’s around the corner because things will just keep going and the more you enjoy it the more you will keep doing it, and things will just toss by and you might just end up like me”

Understanding barriers and enablers towards physical activity is an essential first step to developing interventions and increasing activity levels of people with intellectual disabilities. Virtus Academy manager Dr. Debbie Van Biesen along with her team of researchers recently published a paper where they investigated the correlates of physical activity in people with intellectual disability.

“I and my colleagues performed a review of all existing literature and identified that the three most consistent correlates of physical activity were age, the presence of more severe ID and the presence of physical mobility problems,” said Dr Debbie.

A total of 83 PA correlates were identified, retrieved from 39 studies with a total involvement of 26,456 participants with ID.  A correlation was considered consistent if it was reported in four or more studies.

“Despite the abundance of evidence of the PA benefits for people with ID, we only found consistent evidence for three correlates reliably being related to PA in adults with ID. More research, particularly among young and older people is urgently needed.” Dr. Debbie added. 

As more severe intellectual disability and the presence of physical health problems were found to be important barriers to being active in adults with intellectual disability, this study is supporting the II-2 class (athletes with an intellectual disability and significant additional impairment) development within Virtus Sports Competitions.

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It is well known that intellectual impairment affects people differently. For some people, it means they might struggle to remember things, but for others it can be a very different experience.

Tennis player Andriana Petrakis from Australia is one such person who is blessed with an amazing memory which, with her autism, helps her remember even the smallest details.

“She remembers peoples’ names, people’s birthdays with the exact year, and registration numbers of cars, she is very good at navigation too,” said Andriana’s mother.

While Andriana’s memory retention is a gift, it can put a lot of pressure on the athlete.

“There is information everywhere around us. And because Andriana can remember things very easily, her brain gets overwhelmed from time to time with all the information she acquires from her surroundings. We started hiding magazines and newspapers from her and also limited her television time so that she doesn’t get exposed to too much information” says her mother.

Andriana was diagnosed with autism when she was twenty-two months old. This is a condition which means that people might see the world around us differently, might find it harder to communicate and find loud noise and light overwhelming. Her parents practised having eye contact with her as she was not looking at them while talking. She did a lot of occupational therapy and speech therapies. Andriana’s younger sister played tennis, which motivated her to give it a try the sport and soon fell in love with the sport. Later, she started playing tennis as an alternative to her occupational therapy.

“There was not much help twenty years ago for children with Autism. We talked to many different people looking for help, took Andriana for early interventions, etc. She didn’t start talking until she was five and a half or six years; her first word was ‘bubble’” said Andriana’s mother.

“Andriana had her routine since she was a child, and it took us a while to adjust to her schedule but afterwards it was very easy for us to take care of Andriana than my other two children. She was always very positive, she keeps the family grounded.”

Talking about her positivity, Andriana’s mother told Virtus how she never gets disappointed even if she loses a match and feels proud of herself for playing well and never cries.

Andriana is also a tennis/pickleball coach with South Australia’s first disability sports organization registered with the NDIS. She trains young children with autism and learning disabilities. In 2020, Andriana won the ‘Most Outstanding Athlete with a Disability Award.

Andriana is supported by Sport Inclusion Australia.