Comparison between normal and mental retard children with mental aged 6-7 on motor skills

  Introduction: The motor skill has the important role on the individual skill, such as activity of daily living and learning in the children. Obviously, the social and educational skills can be affected by motor impairment. The purpose of this study was to determine the motor skill differences between normal and mental retard children mental aged 6-7.   Materials and Methods: This analytic-descriptive study was done on 104 children including 66 normal children and 38 mental retard children. The normal subjects were selected among the Behzisty kindergarten and first grade of primary school by cluster sampling and mental children by a census sampling. Each subject was individually assessed by Lincoln-Oseretsky motor development scale.   Results: The findings showed that there was no difference between these two groups on objects balancing, hand and leg coordination, hand motor dexterity, and eye- hand coordination. A significant differences between two groups on body balancing (P=0.024), throwing and taking (P=0.0001), jumping (P=0.0001) and total score motor skill (P=0.0001) was found. Conclusion: Although, the real and mental age in the mental retardation children are different and they have more opportunities in environmental interactive, without any treatment and learning, they have incapability in the motor skills in comparison with the normal ones