Motor activity in children who are blind or partially sighted

Abstract

Until now, no empirical data have been available on the quantitative restrictions to motor activity in children with visual impairments even though many researchers and practitioners have stressed that these restrictions may be responsible for many of the observable motor problems. The present study used actometers to measure leg and arm activity in 20 children who were blind, 15 who were partially sighted, and 35 sighted controls from the same pre-school groups matched for age and gender. The results showed strong and highly significant restrictions in leg movements in the blind compared with sighted peers (63% of the leg activity of sighted controls). Differences in arm movements did not attain statistical significance (83% of the arm activity of sighted controls). The partially sighted group revealed stronger restrictions in leg movements (77% of the leg activity of sighted controls) than in arm movements (90% of the arm activity of sighted controls). However, none of the differences between the partially sighted and sighted were significant. Nonetheless, the degree of visual impairment or the birth status (full-term vs. pre-term) related significantly with activity levels in the group of visually impaired. Entering these variables as covariates revealed statistically non-significant differences between the blind and partially sighted and between the pre- and full-term visually impaired groups. It is concluded that this method could be used to evaluate the effects of different interventions on motor activities and to observe developmental progress in children with visual impairment at various ages.

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