The effectiveness of motor therapy on motor skills and bilateral coordination of children with Intellectual Disability

Abstract

Objectives: Motor therapy plays a key role on the bilateral coordination skills and motor activities of children with Intellectual Disability (ID). The present research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of motor therapy on motor skills and bilateral coordination skills of students with ID. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental research with pre-test and post-test and control group design. The study participants were 26 male students with ID from 2 special schools in Tehran City, Iran. The samples were selected by cluster sampling method. They were randomly divided into the experimental and control groups and each group consisted of 13 students. In the experimental group, motor therapy was performed during 16 sessions, while the control group did not receive any trainings. Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of motor proficiency was used for measuring gross motor skills, fine motor skills and bilateral coordination skills of the students. The obtained data were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA). Results: MANCOVA results indicated a significant difference between the gross motor skills, fine motor skills and bilateral coordination skills in the experimental group, following the intervention (P<0.0001). Discussion: Motor therapy improved motor skills and bilateral coordination skills of students with ID. Therefore, taking motor therapy could have positive impacts on the motor skills and bilateral coordination skills of students with ID.