Physical Activity Interventions for Children and Youth With Visual Impairments
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The authors conducted a systematic literature review on physical activity interventions for children and youth with visual impairment (VI). Five databases were searched to identify studies involving the population of interest and physical activity practices. After evaluating 2,495 records, the authors found 18 original full-text studies published in English they considered eligible. They identified 8 structured exercise-training studies that yielded overall positive effect on physical-fitness and motor-skill outcomes. Five leisure-time-physical-activity and 5 instructional-strategy interventions were also found with promising proposals to engage and instruct children and youth with VI to lead an active lifestyle. However, the current research on physical activity interventions for children and youth with VI is still limited by an absence of high-quality research designs, low sample sizes, use of nonvalidated outcome measures, and lack of generalizability, which need to be addressed in future studies.
Furtado and Gutierrez are with the Dept. of Adapted Physical Activity, State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Campinas, Brazil, and the CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil, Brasília-DF, Brazil. Allums-Featherston is with the Cooper Inst., Dallas, TX. Lieberman is with the Dept. of Kinesiology, Sport Studies, and Physical Education, State University of New York at Brockport, Brockport, NY.
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