Assessing the Abilities of Disabled Rock Climbers

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Kim Millikan. I am here at the National Ability Center, on our climbing wall. For the very first time somebody comes to our center, we always have them fill out a participation assessment form. And that will tell us their disability, well, it will tell us who they are first, and that's the most important. Then it will tell us their disability, abilities that they have, and areas where we might be able to assist them in getting up the wall. We look for things that might so that we can have the equipment ready; however, with climbing it really is about the individual, and regardless of what it says on that form, we are always surprised by people's abilities, and different abilities that they have that they didn't know about, or something that they just forgot to mention. So our assessment really starts when they walk in the door, and are talking with us. For the adaptive climber, understanding the level of confidence is huge, and that's perhaps the biggest reason to go to a climbing gym first, and be in a safe, controlled environment, with people who know what they're doing."