The ability to maintain postural balance in adolescents with mild intellectual disability and adolescents with typical development

Abstract

Falls are common among people with intellectual disabilities. In literature there is a limited number of studies which deal with this problem. The main objective of this research is to analyze the ability to maintain postural balance in adolescents with mild intellectual disability (ID) by comparing it to their peers who do not have ID. The sample included 64 male adolescents, aged 16 to 18, out of which 32 belonged to the experimental group (e-group) and had mild ID, while the control group (c-group) consisted of 32 adolescents of typical population. The ability to maintain postural balance in both groups was tested by using three tests: Expanded Timed Up and Go Test (ETUGT), Modified Functional Reach Test (M-FRT) and One-leg Stance (OLS). The research was conducted in the period from 2008 to 2010 in 'Petar Leković' Secondary School, Belgrade (Serbia), as well as in the Institution for people with special needs 'Caritas' in Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina). The results show that the use of ETUG test showed a statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of time needed for the completion of the test, while on the M-FR test the participants from e-group achieved significantly lower results than the c-group. The OLS test showed that the participants of both groups completed the test equally well on both legs when not blindfolded, while the experimental group achieved significantly lower results on both legs when blindfolded. The results suggest that adolescents with ID achieve lower results on most of the applied postural balance tests when compared to typical adolescent population.