Balance and Coordination Capacities of Male Children and Adolescents With Intellectual Disability
in Adapted Physical Activity QuarterlyClick name to view affiliation
Children and adolescents with intellectual disability (ID) exhibit a mixture of cognitive, motor, and psychosocial limitation. Identifying specific inadequacies in motor proficiency in youth with ID would improve therapeutic management to enhance functional capacity and health-related physical activity. The purpose of this study was to initiate descriptive data collection of gross motor skills of youth with ID and compare those skills with competency norms. The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2) was used to measure 6 items for balance (BAL), 5 items for upper limb coordination (ULC), and 6 items for bilateral coordination (BLC) of 123 males (ages 8–18) with ID but without Down syndrome. The authors performed 2,840 assessments (10–32 for each item); 944, 985, and 913 for BAL, ULC, and BLC, respectively. Mean scores for all age groups for BAL, ULC, and BLC were consistently below BOT-2 criteria. Overall motor skills of males with ID are below the competence expected for children and adolescents without disabilities.
Pitetti is with the Dept. of Physical Therapy, and Miller, the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS. Loovis is with the Dept. of Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH.
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