Many children with visual impairments also suffer from motor dysfunctions, since the monitoring and control of movement is highly dependent on visual information. Practising a sport may help to alleviate some of these problems, according to research conducted by Suzanne Houwen at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG). Houwen will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 4 June 2008.
In a study financed by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Houwen investigated various aspects of the motor functioning of visually impaired children between the ages of six and twelve. She did both a literature search and tested research subjects.
Eye-hand coordination
Houwen’s experimental research shows that visually impaired children mainly have problems with their balance and with tasks requiring fast reflexes and good eye-hand coordination, such as catching a ball. It also appears that there are some motor tasks that these children perform equally well as children who are not visually impaired and that children with severe visual impairments on average do not perform worse than children with mild visual impairments.
Ball skills
Children with visual impairments scored below average on ball skills tests but Houwen discovered that those who practised a sport achieved higher scores. However, most visually impaired children are hardly physically active. This is especially true for children with severe visual impairments and those of above-average weight.
Curriculum Vitae
Suzanne Houwen (Nieuweschans, 1981) conducted her PhD research at two branches of the University Medical Center Groningen, the Center for Movement Sciences (ICB) and the Center for Sports, Movement and Health. Her PhD research was supervised by Prof. C. Visscher. Houwen is currently working as a postdoc at ICB. The title of her dissertation is Motor skill performance of school-age children with visual impairments.
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