There’s a trend out there worth cheering for: more teens with special needs are becoming cheerleaders. I’ve been reading articles about girls with special needs joining squads, as Rachel Massingale above did at Centennial High School in Boise, Idaho, this year.
Cheerleader Megan Squire, of Verrado High School in Buckeye, Arizona (above) made headlines last year after starring in a video for a Katy Perry music contest. In November, Katy took her to the American Music Awards.
The Sparkle Effect is a nonprofit that encourages teens to include students with disabilities—including Down syndrome, autism and cerebral palsy—in high-school cheerleading programs. To date, there are 122 Sparkle Effect inclusive dance and cheer teams around the country. Yet schools aren’t always so open-minded. Last fall, the parents of high school freshman Brittany Davila, who lives in Deer Park, Texas and has Down syndrome (that’s her in the center, above), had to put in a special request so that she could do her cheer thing; officials wanted to keep her in the stands, expressing safety concerns.
Inclusive cheerleading squads are awesome, but I also love the ones out there comprised entirely of people with disabilities. There are the Shining Diamonds (above), a cheerleading team in Helena, Alabama made up of people ages 4 to 31 with special needs who travel to competitions throughout the Southeast (here’s their Go Fund Me page). And the Dakota Spirit Sparklers, an adpated cheerleading team in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Either way, it’s A Good Thing for the world to see that having special needs doesn’t make you any less capable of expressing enthusiasm and getting into the spirit of a game.
From my other blog:
Tracking devices for children with autism and other special needs
Jobs for people with disabilities, and a flash of hope
Birthday love for my other special child
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