Purpose: The intellectual development of people with mental retardation has been stopped or is incomplete. This condition is associated with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) of the general cognition level and affects the verbal, motor, and cognitive abilities of these people. This study aims to investigate the effect of selective balance/corrective exercises on the balance performance of mentally-retarded students with DCD.
Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 23 mentally-retarded male students with DCD. They were randomly assigned to the groups of intervention (n=12, Mean±SD age: 15.75±1.21 y, Mean±SD height: 1.67±0.08 m, Mean±SD weight: 61.28±14.34 kg) and control (n=11, Mean±SD age: 16.73±1.34 y, Mean±SD height: 1.72±0.07 m, Mean±SD weight: 70.28±15.75 kg). The intervention group performed selective balance/corrective exercises for 8 weeks (three sessions per week). To assess the static balance and dynamic balance of the samples, the modified Stork test with eyes open and closed mode and the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test were used, respectively. The Pediatric Balance Scale was used to assess functional balance. For analyzing the collected data, the Independent t test and analysis of covariance were carried out.
Results: There was a significant difference between the two study groups in terms of static balance with eyes open (P=0.01) and closed (P=0.01) and dynamic balance (P=0.01); however, no significant difference was found between them with respect to functional balance (P>0.05).
Conclusion: The selected balance/corrective exercises can improve the static and dynamic balance of mentally-retarded students with DCD.