Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Background & Objective: Subjective mental retardation is one of the agents that in the condition people have less activity than other normal one because of their mental and psychological problem. Based on type of society approach to them, they have less active in comparison with healthy people, and due to this lack of mobility, suffer from physical–motor weakness. One of ways to improve motor behavior of children with intellectual disabilities is physical activity and exercise. Experts believe that physical fitness is a prerequisite for success in other forms of movement. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to compare effects of functional exercises and school games on motor skills of educable intelligence girls.
Methods: This study was semi experimental and pre–test and post–test. The statistical samples of this study was 30 girl students 10–16 year’s old schoolchildren of psychology and exceptional school from Neiriz city (Fars province, South of Iran). Participants were identified based on diagnosis of mentally retarded psychiatrists and at Raven's intelligence test; they scored 50 to 70, indicating that they were educable. Then the participants were ranked from top to bottom according to the score in the test. Therefore, based on three consecutive scores divided in the exercise practice group, control group and primary game group. The instrument for collecting data in this study was the Brinhinks–Overstrain expiratory test, which is a normal reference for general and subtle motor skills. Some functional exercises practice included walking forward, sitting and getting up from the chair, spiral movement from eight cones for distance of 1 meter, standing on the soles and heels of feet, along with changes in the direction of the side to side, front and rear. In the primary games group, 45 minutes played after 15 minutes warming, were considered smooth running. The exercise practice group, as well as the primary school group, trained for 8 weeks and the control group was only followed up and did not receive an intervention. For data analysis, SPSS software version 21 was used for comparison between paired t–test and covariance analysis was used for comparison between groups. A significant level of p≤0.001 was considered.
Results: The results of covariance analysis showed that there was a significant difference between the scores in the exercises practice and primary school game and the control group. These deference were in the large motor skills (F=81.54, p≤0.001), balance (F=28.8, p≤0.001), coordination (F=19.47, p≤0.001), running speed (F=74.22, p≤0.001) and foot strength (F=98.9, p≤0.001). Also, post–test results showed that there was no significant difference between the scores in the functional training group and the games in the variables of gross motor skills, balance, coordination, running speed and strength of the feet.
Conclusion: Functional exercises and primary school games can be used to improve motor skills and balance, leg strength, speed, and coordination of girls with intellectual disabilities.