Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Background & Objective: Intellectual disability refers to a degree of general intelligence activity that is significantly and substantially less than the average population, which is associated with deficits in adaptive behavior. Roughly 1–3% of individuals worldwide are characterized as such. Children with intellectual disabilities (ID) exhibit numerous impairments in different domains of functioning. Alongside impairments in cognitive, social and adaptive behaviour, they also report lower levels of physical fitness at all stages of life. Furthermore, numerous researchers have reported lower performance on standard fitness tests for the assessment of strength, endurance, flexibility and motor coordination, cardiovascular endurance in persons with ID. Individuals with intellectual disability often have problems with balance and strength.
Methods: The study employed a two group pre-test post quasi-experimental design. The study population consisted of Children with intellectual disability in Khorramabad-Iran. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 24 participants. The participants were randomly assigned to two experiment and one control groups in equal numbers. The research instruments were a demographic questionnaire and Ulrich test (TGMD-2). Family Burden Interview Schedule (FBIS) and Marital Stress Scale (MSS). The Experimental groups received 10 weeks of training. Shapiro Wilks test was used to test the research hypotheses.
Results: The results showed that both experimental groups in locomotor skills were significant better than control group. And there was not any statistical difference between two experimental groups (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Selected motor program and Spark programs can improve fundamental skills of children with Intellectual Disability.