Effect of rhythmic exercise on perceptual - moving skills children with visual impairments

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of rhythmic exercises on perceptual- motor skills in children with visual impairment. Nineteen low- vision children with mean age of 5.44-5.7 years were selected purposively (10 individuals for experimental group and 9 individuals for control group) in Isfahan. Based on their performance in perceptual- motor skills measured by the movement Assessment Battery for children test. They were randomly divided into two control and experimental groups. Experimental group participated in 8week rhythmic exercises training, sessions of 4 mints per week and totally 24 sessions and control group continued its daily activities. All subjects were pre and post tested for data collection. Ancova-test was used for comparison between two groups (α=0.05).Research results showed significant difference in favor of experimental group in comparison to control group on capabilities including fine motor (P=0.002), ball skills (P=0.000), static balance (P=0.001) and dynamic balance (walking in high heels, jumping over the thread) (P=0.000). This difference was significant (P<0.05). In conclusion, it may say rhythmic exercises can to enhance suitable program perceptual – moving skills in low-vision children.