The Effects of the Environment on Physical Activity Patterns of Children with Mental Retardation

The Effects of Water Exercises and Swimming on Physical Fitness of Children with Mental Retardation

“…It is wellknown that children with MR have low physical fitness levels compared to children without disabilities (Fernhall and Pitetti, 2000;Horvat and Franklin, 2001;. Shephard (1980) stated that this was highly related to low physical activity participation instead of physical disabilities.…”

“…At this point, Horvat and Franklin (2001) suggest that children with MR should be provided with more opportunities for different physical activities. Moreover, they emphasize that sedentary life styles, such as inactivity and reduced participation in games and physical activity, should not be tolerated for children with MR.…”

“…It is well known that children with MR have isolation problems in society what leads to their physical inactivity (Horvat and Franklin, 2001). Some research reports indicate that children with MR achieve very low scores in cardiovascular fitness tests (Vannier and Faith, 1975;Öktem, 1987).…”

“…Most research in the literature states that children with MR have poor level of physical fitness compared with their nondisabled peers. These studies found that children with MR have a low level of cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, running speed, balance, and agility (Barton, 1982;Bertoti, 1989;Fernhall and Pitetti, 2000;Horvat and Franklin, 2001;Vannier and Fait, 1975).…”

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“…Generally speaking, MI have a deficit compared to typical population for fitness parameters such as strength and motor skill (LeClair, Pollock, & Elliott, 1993;Vuijk, Hartman, Scherder, & Visscher, 2010).This has been attributed to a failure of central drive (Haier, Jungb, Yeoc, Heada, & Alkired, 2004;Yu, Li, Liu, Qin, Li, Shu, N., et al 2008) and to environmental parameters such as inactivity (Horvat & Franklin, 2001). The majority of studies regarding jumping performance are related with horizontal jumping (Skowronski, Horvat, Nocera, Roswal, & Croce, 2009).…”