Sportif Bakış Spor ve Eğitim Bilimleri Dergisi (Apr 2016)
The Evaluation of Athlete and Non-Athlete Mentally Retarded Children’s Dynamic Balance Level
Abstract
Balance is an extremely important fundamental skill for the survival of the individual’s life. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate dynamic balance of mentally retarded children who participated in sports active and regularly (athlete) and did not participate in sports actively (non-athlete). The study group was consisted of total 29 mentally retarded children, 14 athletes and 15 non-athletes. In this study, the average ages of athletes were 13.25 and non-athletes’ were 12.95. As a data collection tool “Star Excursion Balance Test” was used. The obtained data was evaluated using t-test for the independent groups. The results showed a statistically significant difference between groups according to all sub-dimension of star excursion balance test (p< 0.05). It was determined that, the average values of mentally retarded athletes were higher than non-athletes. Consequently, it can be said that regular physical activity has a significant effect for improvement in balance skills of individuals with mentally retarded.
