Bilateral Coordination of Children who are Blind

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the bilateral coordination in children and adolescents with visual impairments aged 7 to 18 years in comparison to their sighted peers. An additional objective was to identify the influence of sex and age on bilateral coordination. Seventy-five individuals with congenital severe visual impairment (40 girls and 35 boys) comprised the visually impaired group. The Sighted group comprised 139 youth without visual impairment. Subtest 4 of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency was administered to test bilateral coordination. To analyze the effect of the independent variables in the results obtained in the Subtest 4, four linear regression models were applied according to group and sex. The results indicated that severe visual impairment and lack of visual sensation had a negative effect on the development of participants’ bilateral coordination, which however did not depend on sex or age.