Four domains for development for all (4D4D4All): A holistic, physical literacy framework

Figures & data

Figure 1. The four domains (creative, social, physical, and psychological) are situated in interrelated movement (play, sport, recreation, performance arts, activities of daily living, vocation), social (ages, abilities, cultures) and physical (snow, air, land, water, ice) contexts. The dotted line represents the notion of construction of positive challenges suitable for the contexts.

Table 1. Examples of components included in each of the four domains of the 4D4D4All framework, including illustrative examples across levels of the ecological system.

Domain	Participant/Individual	Microsystem Context	Macro/Exosystem
Physical	Physical and physiological adaptations to exercise/movement Fitness Sensations	Physical features Physical safety Accessibility for people of various physical abilities and assistive devices Equipment available for variety of body sizes	Accessibility policies Manufacturing of equipment for a broader range of bodies
Psychological	Cognition and affect Mental health and mental illness symptoms Self-efficacy Self-perceptions Confidence Motivation Fun/pleasure Self-esteem	Psychological safety Considerations for neurodiverse participants (accessibility) Inclusion of accessibility check-ins Positive challenge for all levels of ability	Mental health supports in the community Culture of acceptance for diverse abilities, etc.
Social	Interpersonal skills Prosocial behaviors Identity Resilience Agency Trust Vulnerability	Social safety Accessibility based on social roles Processes in place to receive and address requests for accommodation Policies addressing sexual harassment, gender diversity, etc. Respectful culture	Social facilitators for participation Access to resources
Creative	Openness Risk perspective Innovation Acceptance of failure/learning from failure	Availability of opportunities Openness to differences Adaptability to various needs and preferences	Changing societal values around risk and failure Changing values around conformity of movement

Table 2. Successful implementation of physical literacy enriched programming or design are provided in the illustrative examples below. The primary characteristics outlined in the 4D4DALL framework are addressed in each example including considerations for each of the four domains, as well as an inclusive developmental pathway for a wide range of abilities.

Background	Examples of 4D4D4All in Practice
Physical education Physical education (PE) is an area which would benefit from application of the 4D4D4ALL framework for creation of curriculum, revision of existing curricular content, as well as guiding pedagogical practices. PE has been criticized as being sport-centric, performance excellence driven, focused on indoor gymnasium activities, and contributing to increasing the gender gap in movement competence and confidence. Some agencies and jurisdictions related to PE have adopted physical literacy as a foundation to achieving quality physical education leading to examples which have ameliorated many of the preexisting deficits. In addition, we have also provided examples that speak to inclusion of other recreational pursuits beyond sport so that all can find their movement voice - active participation for all. New PE curricula are attempting to offer movement experiences across multiple contexts including recreation, performance arts, activities of daily living, vocation, as well as play.	Wheeled motion exposes students to a variety of wheeled conveyances (inline skates, scooters, trikes, unicycles, rip sticks, fat tyre bikes, etc.) initiated in the gymnasium, and ultimately leading to outdoor experiences on tracks, snow covered trails, roadways, and parks. This program embraced the notion of authentic contextual experiences involving problem solving in multiple physical environments, different social contexts, and across movement contexts albeit limited to wheeled devices. This deviated from other approaches like active transport initiatives (directives) where all students should “bicycle to school” or a purely sport-specific delivery like road cycling, in favor of students finding their “wheels”. The introduction of multiple wheel devices allowed for a wide range of abilities and interests to be simultaneously considered. It also created real-life navigation feed-forward motor control competencies for understanding how to avoid collisions between vehicles of different characteristics. Each student was encouraged to find their way of navigation (creative problem solving) under an adequate safety mindset (versus surplus safety). Finally, this delivery resulted in a nonhierarchical respect (empathy) among the different wheel motion users. Two nontraditional PE units that exemplify the application of 4D4D4ALL framework and are wholly consistent with both non-linear pedagogy and physical literacy enriched pedagogy are parkour and circus arts. Lesson plans based on foundational parkour movement skills use the non-linear pedagogical principle of constraint based, task variation to overcome obstacles of different sizes, shapes, and textures, and in unique sequences using individual specific talents of the students. The parkour unit shifts from teacher led to student directed including parkour obstacle selection, ultimately leading to the natural exploration of the playground during recesses. Circus arts instruction in PE similarly allows for exploration of diverse movement types through unit based and yearlong exposure to all the major circus families (aerials, acrobatics, manipulation, equilibrium, and clowning). Both parkour and circus arts programs foster the development of perceived self-competence through intentional competence-confidence coupling; problem solving and ownership; the ability to self-organize behaviors with self and others (agency); seeing physical environments as affordances rather than barriers; perseverance leading to a resiliency; intentional development of self-efficacy in combination with the technical skills; and finally, the development of a healthy risk perspective (as opposed to risk adverse) across a domains (physical, psychological, social, creative). Further, since there are many levels of challenges, children of different abilities can engage in learning through “their way” of overcoming obstacles and finding belonging through movement (e.g. “juggling your way” versus “juggling this way”). Contact:^1 Jeff Spiers, Physical Education Teacher, St James Assiniboia School Division, Wheeled Motion Program [e-mail] Dr. Oğuzhan Yolcu, Parkour in physical education, Turkey [e-mail] Example material https://open.metu.edu.tr/handle/11511/104498 JJ Ross, Health and Physical Education Coordinator, Circus Arts Instruction in Physical Education [e-mail]
Sport Sport has been criticized for application of adult training models to children, to catering to the elite, to a focus on technical skills and physical prowess without intentional consideration for psychosocial competencies. Further, despite a high valuation of the importance of creativity in sport, practice sessions largely rely on a prescriptive approach. As such, application of the 4D4D4ALL framework can have many benefits in and across sport movement contexts. Many sports have adopted physical literacy as a foundation for their athlete development models. Implementation of physical literacy as a development principle has been slow, but some success stories have emerged resulting in an explicit shift in emphasis of training sessions from technical/tactical to include the affective, social and creative domains.	Physical literacy enriched hockey practices have been championed by USA Hockey. This has resulted in coaches creating drills highlighting exploratory behaviors where participants are encouraged to be creative to find “all the ways” of achieving the goals (“like the game”). Further, many dogmatic drills (such as the horseshoe drill) have traditionally been directed to a limited range in ability, which by optimal challenge theory would only engage roughly only a third of the athletes, as well as promoting social inhibition and providing very few repetitions that are transferable to the game. USA Hockey has fostered drill development that requires that a level of challenge is provided for all levels of ability leading to both pride and enjoyment experienced by all participants through “learning something that is new”. Further, the practice sessions focus on the development of social skills through teamwork, rather than drills that foster and value individual talent. As well, this application based upon physical literacy has also been used to minimize the negative impact of over-specialization by valuing participation beyond the rink in other activities - specialization with diversification rather than over-specialization. Contact: Ken Martel, Sr. Director, Player & Coach Development, USA Hockey [e-mail] Example material https://www.usahockey.com/news_article/show/1196220
Environmental design The application of the 4D4D4ALL model also applies to environmental design. Physical literacy enriched environmental design has been successfully implemented in various environments resulting in a shift away from segregated elite performance oriented competitive facilities to places catering to a wide range of physical and social abilities and diverse interests. “Universal Design” principles tend to create a flat movement competency profile catering to a fixed user experience which severely limits competency progressions for people of different abilities. Many recreational outdoor spaces are designed with a feature-based approach with specific uses in mind; however, design using an affordance perspective enhances participant exploration of the movement space.	“Inclusive by design” used physical literacy as a foundation in the creation of trails for cyclists across many disciplines, but specifically focused on the purposeful movement intersection of mountain bikers of different abilities (e.g. 2-wheel, 3-wheel, electric, leg versus arm driven). The addition of physical literacy tenet of a level of challenge to all levels of ability resulted in creating trails with a competency challenge for all, as well as fostering creative problem solving to master trails using different wheeled designs. This application resulted in people of all ages, all abilities and across a wide range of cycling disciplines to intersect with each other. Through the creation of a shared movement context, vicarious experiences would socially connect people of different ages, cultures, and abilities. Movement intersection fostered a high level of respect and empathy among users and allowed participants to realize a competency progression regardless of their physical ability. Finally, one of the barriers to participation includes amenities, that are often an oversight for inclusive participation. Physical literacy enriched environmental design requires that basic human needs are addressed for all potential participants, otherwise this acts as a barrier or forces segregation. Contact: Jan Neufeld, Inclusive by Design [e-mail] Example material https://kootenayadaptive.com/adaptive-mountain-biking-trail-standards/
Injury Prevention Many older adult movement-based interventions are based upon a medical model, including falls prevention programs, dementia prevention, etc. These programs are often fear based, highlight inability, and focus on limitations rather than potential with downstream negative psychosocial impacts. Further, these approaches tend to label all older adults as having one level of “failing” ability. Traditional “falls prevention” programs violate the person-context considerations of the 4D4D4ALL model as they are focused on land based, indoor environments that do not include physical competency development on slippery surfaces for which a substantial proportion of deleterious injuries occur.	Injury and disease prevention models based upon movement for older adults have begun to apply physical literacy approaches across the four domains. In the realm of fracture prevention, one of the earliest starting points of these new approaches has been in the abandonment of fear-based terminology like “falls prevention” in favor of terms like “mobility enrichment” or “mobility enhancement”. These new approaches do not identify slippery surfaces, like icy surfaces, as hazard to be avoided, but as an affordance that physical and psychological competencies can overcome (e.g., curling). This places the participant in a “possibilities perspective” that opens the door to social participation, rather than fostering social isolation through fear. In physical literacy enriched approaches, the vast array of potential positive physical and psychosocial benefits are highlighted in a balanced “risk neutral” approach, rather than focusing solely on outcomes that are entirely negative. These approaches start interactions with participants with understanding the current levels of ability of each participant rather than the ableist and ageist assumption that each participant has substantial limitations. This results in activities that are selected based upon the interests of the participation even if it includes what would have been deemed “unsafe” including slippery and unstable surfaces. Finally, these physical literacy enriched older adult programs highlight the importance of intentional development of efficacy of the participant and engage the participant in decision making and creative problem solving for mobility enhancement. Contact: Brandy Tennebaum, Mobility Enrichment, Injury Prevention Coordinator at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center. [e-mail] Example material https://www.newmarkettoday.ca/local-news/before-the-fall-summit-to-address-physical-activity-in-elderly-1445464

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Data availability statement

Not applicable