Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background & Objectives: Although the most important difference between humans and other creatures is their mental abilities, it can be seen that some people have mental problems that affect different aspects of their lives. One of the most important problems is intellectual disability. This disability is one of the common developmental disorders because of its side effects and widespread prevalence. It is associated with abnormalities and general developmental delays in various physical, psychological, social, and educational aspects that affect children's motor, cognitive, communicative, and language development. The results of previous studies have shown that students with learning disabilities have problems with handwriting skills, attention, and working memory. Therefore, it is very important to use appropriate methods to improve these problems. One of these effective methods is visual–motor training. Hence, this research aimed to determine the effectiveness of visual–motor training on handwriting skills, attention, and working memory of children with educable intellectual disabilities.
Methods: This study was quasi–experimental and was conducted using a pretest–posttest design with a control group. The statistical population of the present study comprised students with intellectual disabilities, 11 to 16 years old, living in Tehran City, Iran, in 2023. Among the statistical population, 30 qualified volunteers were selected by available sampling and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups (each group includes 15 people). The inclusion criteria were as follows: having an IQ of 55 to 70, being in the age range of 11 to 16 years, interested in participating in the research, and lacking serious speech, physical, and movement problems affecting the process of the sessions. The exclusion criteria were as follows: absenteeism from more than three training sessions, non–observance of group therapy rules, and incomplete performance of the tests in the research. This research observed ethical standards including obtaining informed consent and guaranteeing privacy and confidentiality. Also, when participating in the research, the participants were free to withdraw from the research at any time and provide personal information. They were assured that the information would remain confidential and fully respected. After the end of the research, some motor skills training was also implemented for the control group to maintain ethical standards. Both groups completed the handwritten checklist (Hadavand Khani et al., 2008) and Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children– IV (WISC–4) (Wechsler, 2012) in the pretest and posttest stages. The visual–motor training program was implemented in the experimental group as a 10 session's 60–minute program, three times a week, but the control group did not receive any treatment plan. Data analysis was carried out in two parts: descriptive and inferential statistics. At the level of descriptive statistics, frequency, mean, and standard deviation were estimated. In the inferential statistics, analysis of covariance was used. Data analysis was done in SPSS software version 26, and the significance level of the tests was considered to be 0.05.
Results: The results showed significant differences in all three variables of handwriting skills, attention, and working memory between the experimental and control groups in the posttest, after removing the effect of the pretest (p<0.001). Also, visual–motor training could increase handwriting by 75%, attention by 59%, and working memory by 79%.
Conclusion: Based on the research findings, visual–motor training for students with educable intellectual disabilities is a suitable method to improve their handwriting skills, attention, and working memory.