The Effectiveness of Sensory Motor Integration on Gross Motor Skills of Students with Intellectual Disability

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Motor skills are essential skills for learning and success in school. Movement and learning are the source of all perceptions and learning. In relation to motor impairments in students with intellectual disability, motor-sensory integration is one of interventions that is consistent with perceptual-motor theories. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of motor sensory integration exercises on the gross motor skills of students with intellectual disability. Method: The present study was conducted with experimental design with pre-test, post-test, and follow-up period with control group. The study population consisted of all students with intellectual disability in Firoozabad city during the academic year of 2017-2018. The sample consisted of 30 students from this papulation (7-14 years old) who were selected by convenience sampling and then randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group received motor sensory integration training for 10 sessions (two days a week), while the control group did not receive any training. In this study, the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, was used as pre-test, post-test, and follow-up for data collection. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. Results: The results of the data analysis of this study showed that the intervention of motor sensory integration increased the scores of gross motor skills in the experimental group which remained stable after one month (P <0.001). Conclusion: According to the findings of this study, it can be concluded that the intervention based on motor sensory integration method has been able to control basic motions, maintaining body posture or balance, lateral superiority, movement and orientation movements, body awareness and imagery, and thus improve motor skills in students with intellectual disabilities.