Leisure in later life for people with intellectual impairments: beyond service provision toward person coherence

Abstract

ABSTRACT Rooted in a paradigmatic history of institutionalization and dependency, leisure professionals have assumed that without intervention, retirees with intellectual impairments may experience loneliness, isolation, and inactivity when leaving the structured settings of sheltered employment. The belief that expert-driven programs are necessary to live active, engaged, and meaningful retirements reflects an enduring deficits-based discourse of disability. The purpose of the study was to understand the experiences of three men with intellectual impairments who enjoyed self-directed active leisure in retirement without professional supports or constraints of recreation and leisure specialists. Using narrative inquiry methodology the inward experiences of places that supported autonomous retirement leisure were uncovered; the senior centre, rural connections, downtown, and church. Their stories illustrated rejection of the professional landscape of expert-driven leisure programs by composing self-directed leisure activities interconnected with their past interests, preferred social networks, and place. Their narratives disrupted beliefs that professionally crafted programs are necessary for a satisfying, active, and engaging retirement. An alternate paradigmatic lens of personal coherence emerged reflecting self-driven expressions of leisure based upon personal history, autonomy, and choice.