The Effect of Eight Weeks Posture and Balance Trainings on Physical Fitness Factors of Mental Retardation Children

There are few researches about effects of exercises on physical fitness factors of children with mental retardation. Aim of present study is to review the effect of eight weeks posture and balance training on physical fitness factors of mental retardation children.
30 voluntary students of Laleh Mental Retardation Elementary School of Yasuij city were selected as sample purposively. In the pretest stage all subjects were measured with the static balance, dynamic balance, muscle strength, flexibility and muscle endurance and then all subjects were divided into two groups of experimental and control. The experimental group trained selective exercises for eight weeks and the control group just did their daily activities. After eight weeks in posttest, all variables were measured again similarly as the prertest stage.
Findings: Results showed that eight weeks posture and balance training has significant effect on improvement of static balance (p=0.02), flexibility (p=0.001) and muscle endurance (p=0.006) of children with mental retardation; nevertheless it has no significant effect on improvement of dynamic balance (p=0.99) and muscle strength (p=0.11) of children with mental retardation.
regards to findings of present research, it is concluded that to improve the physical fitness of children with mental retardation, we can use eight weeks posture and balance training.