Comparing the Impact of a Perceptual-Motor Training Course on Adaptive Behavior and Self-efficacy of Educable Intellectual Disabled Children in Competitive and Non-competitive Environments

The purpose of the present research was to compare the impact of a perceptual-motor training course on adaptive behavior and self-efficacy of educable Intellectual Disabled children in competitive and non-competitive environments.
The present research has a pre- and posttest quasi-experimental design. The statistical population consisted of 36 educable mentally retarded students aged 9-12 years, from an exceptional children’s school in Borujen. Twenty eight students (13 girls and 15 boys) were selected through available and purposive sampling from the desired population and were assigned into two groups of training in a competitive environment and training in a non-competitive environment based on replication method. Both groups practiced a perceptual -motor training for a period of eight weeks. The group of training in a competitive environment practiced in a competitive environment and the group of training in a non-competitive environment practiced in a non-competitive environment. In order to collect data, Wheeler-Ladd’s self-efficacy questionnaire and Vinland’s adaptive behavior questionnaire were used that were completed as pre-test and post-test by parents. The data were analyzed by using co-variance test.
The findings showed that perceptual training regardless of training environment had significant impact on improvement of adaptive behavior and increasing of self-efficacy. Also, training in competitive environment in comparison with non-competitive environment caused more improvement in adaptive behavior of educable mental retarded children; however, with regard to self-efficacy, no difference was observed between two groups.
Motivational environment can have different impacts on adaptive behavior of educable mentally retarded children.