Program helps children with intellectual disabilities

Mary Timm Mueller started a play group for her son with Down syndrome, looking for a way to create a community for her mom friends and bring together children like Benjamin.
The need for a place where kids with intellectual disabilities and their siblings could play, learn and make friends became apparent. Soon, Mueller wanted to go beyond her home.
With a little encouragement, she decided to start a local chapter of Special Olympics Young Athletes.
“It started as a labor of love, and I wondered if I could do this,” Mueller said. “Special Olympics told me it only takes one family. I guess we’re that one family.”
Mueller has been renting West Central Community Center’s gym for four years to host the activity hour. The Spokane program is held twice a month, on Saturdays. Children ages 2 to 7 learn hand-eye coordination, balance and critical-thinking skills, and are introduced to sports before reaching Special Olympics eligibility age.
“We want to grow,” said Jill Ives, Washington Special Olympics’ east region sports and program manager. “We have a lot of volunteers interested, more than we have young children.”
Special Olympics for Young Athletes began in the late 1990s on the East Coast. Spokane and Coeur d’Alene programs have existed off and on until this most recent startup.
Special Olympics started the Young Athletes program because “studies show that the younger the kids are, the more it benefits them,” Ives said. “It really helps with their motor skills. It creates a network among parents.”
Kids catch bean bags, walk on a low balance beam, play soccer and navigate obstacle courses, among other activities.
About 20 kids participate now, including Benjamin, now 9, and Mueller’s younger son, 7-year-old Zachary. He “has become a minicoach,” Mueller said of Zachary.
Siblings of kids with intellectual disabilities and others – about 40 percent of the kids in Spokane’s program – participate to help create an all-inclusive environment, Mueller said.
In her family’s case, she added, Special Olympics Young Athletes is not only good for Zachary, “this is just a great opportunity for kids like Benjamin.”