ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Sport, Leisure, Tourism, and Events
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1613833
This article is part of the Research TopicAmplifying the Voices of Individuals with Visual Impairments and Deaf-blindness in the Context of SportsView all 8 articles
Mental Training in Deaflympic Sports 1 From Their Eyes: Deaflympic Athletes' and Coaches' Perspectives on Mental Training
Provisionally accepted
- 1Regensburg University of Applied Sciences, Regensburg, Germany
- 2Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Thuringia, Germany
- 3Leipzig University, Leipzig, Lower Saxony, Germany
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Sport psychology research has largely overlooked athletes with hearing impairments competing in Deaflympic sports, the designated elite sporting movement for this population (Markov-Glazer et al., 2023). This study therefore explored Deaflympic athletes' and coaches' perspectives on mental training in the elite Deaf sports. A qualitative approach was used, involving six focus group interviews with 23 athletes (Mage = 33.09; 26.1% female) and four coaches from individual and team Deaf sports.Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022). Three themes emerged: sport psychology consultation, the influence of visual orientation on psychological skills and demands, and Deaf sport culture and communication. While participants expressed strong interest in sport psychology, engagement with professionals was limited by accessibility issues, lack of sign language-fluent consultants, and structural barriers. Deaf athletes reported adapting some techniques to match their visual-spatial orientation and both advantages and challenges of visual reliance in sports. Distinct communication dynamics between native signers and spoken-language users within Deaf teams were also revealed. These findings highlight the importance of culturally sensitive sport psychology frameworks that support the needs and preferences of Deaflympic athletes and promote equitable access to effective mental training resources.
Keywords: Deaf sport, Deaf Culture, sign language, sport psychology, Psychological Skill Training (PST)
Received: 17 Apr 2025; Accepted: 21 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Markov-Glazer, Elbe and Schliermann. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alon Markov-Glazer, Regensburg University of Applied Sciences, Regensburg, Germany
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