The Effect of a Psychomotor Education Program on the Static Balance of Children With Intellectual Disability.

Children with intellectual disability (ID) demonstrate lower balance ability which results in substantial delays in motor growth and limits their function level. Psychomotor education comprises a holistic movement approach, with the aim to improve all aspects of each child personality. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of a psychomotor education program on static balance of school-aged children with ID. Twenty children with ID who were 8-12 years old participated in the study. They were assigned to 2 groups, 1 experiment and 1 control. The experiment group attended a 16-week psychomotor education program at a frequency of 2 lessons per week, for 45 minutes. All the children who participated in the above measurements had (a) recording of anthropometric characteristics, (b) assessment of motor developmental index, and (c) measurement of static balance. The static balance ability was measured by means of an electronic pressure platform. Each child was requested to keep a quiet stance posture under 4 different conditions: double-leg stance with eyes opened or closed while they observed a visual or visual-auditory target. Participants of the intervention group reduced the values of static balance variables for all the positions. In conclusion, findings of this study clearly indicate that psychomotor education program has an important contribution to make for the most benefit of children with ID in terms of static balance.

Incidence of exercise-induced asthma in adolescent athletes under different training and environmental conditions.

The aim of this study was to establish if there were differences in the incidence of exercise-induced bronchospasm between athletes in different sports, which take place under different environmental conditions such as open places, closed courses, and swimming pools with similar exercise intensity (football, basketball, water polo) using the free running test. The study included 90 adolescents (3 groups of 30) aged 14-18 years recruited from academies in northern Greece. All the participants were initially subjected to (a) a clinical examination and cardiorespiratory assessment by a physician and (b) free running test of a 6-minute duration and measurement with a microspirometer of the forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1). Only the participants who had measured a decrease in FEV1 ≥ 10% were reevaluated with the microspirometer during a training session. The examination of all the participants during the free running test showed that 22 athletes, that is, 9, 8, and 5 of football, basketball, and water polo athletes, respectively, demonstrated an FEV1 ≥ 10 drop. Reevaluation of the 22 participants during training showed that 5 out 9 (55%) football athletes, 4 out of 8 basketball athletes (50%), and none of the 5 athletes of the water polo team displayed a drop of FEV1 ≥ 10%. Despite the absence of any significant statistical differences between the 3 groups, the analysis of variances did show a trend of a lower incidence of EIA in the water polo athletes. It was found that a football or basketball game can induce EIA in young athletes but to a lesser degree than the free running test can induce. The water polo can be a safer sport even for participants with a medical history of asthma or allergies.

Effect of rhythmic gymnastics on the rhythm perception of children with deafness.

This study was designed to examine the effect of a rhythmic gymnastics program on the rhythm perception of children with deafness. Two groups--control and experiment--of 12 and 17 children, respectively, coming from the same school for the deaf participated in this study. The duration of the program for the individuals in the experiment group was 16 weeks (at a frequency of 3 lessons per week, for 40 minutes each lesson), while children of both groups adhered to their regular school schedules. Five rhythmic patterns in 3 speeds (tempi) were reproduced both by a metronome and each child's performance and were recorded on a digital disk before and after the application of the program. The rate of time deviation (in seconds) between the 2 beats represented the score for each child. The average rate of the 5 rhythmic patterns in each tempo was calculated separately, giving 3 scores (one for every tempo) for each child. Significance was set at p < or = 0.05. The data revealed significant postexercise differences in favor of the experiment group, an improvement of the experiment group in all pre-post values, as well as an improved medium tempo with relation to the control group. The findings show the effectiveness of the specific program in terms of improving rhythm ability, thus indicating its use in educating children with deafness on rhythm instead of preferring the routine of the adapted school program.