Basketball skills training and its effects on the maladaptive behaviour patterns of trainable mentally retarded children

Abstract

Abstract Mentally handicapped individuals have many problems in adapting to the natural and social demands of their environment since their cognitive and physical performance levels are far from the societies' expectancies. They show many forms of maladaptation which, in turn, produces failures on the social and academic tasks they are involved in. In fact, in order to fulfill their actual potential it is beneficial for them to experience success. Carefully structured physical exercises and sports programs can help these individuals to experience success and the inherent characteristics of these programs can be used as more realistic treatment or rehabilitation strategies for the development of adaptiveness to the environment. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of basketball skills training on the maladaptive behaviors of trainable mentally handicapped children. The subjects of the study were 20 trainable school children who were matched in pairs based on their chronological age, receptive language age, and gross motor abilities. These subjects were randomly assigned to an experimental and control group. The experimental group subjects participated in a 7 weeks basketball skills training program while the control group subjects attended the same number of free ball play sessions. Maladaptive behaviors of the subjects that were manifested both in the homeand in the classroom, and their basketball skills were assessed by Classroom Behavior Checklist, AAMD Adaptive Behavior Scale, and Sports Skills Assessment respectively- These assessments were conducted immediately before and after the training, and also, 45 days after the end of the training. The results revealed that experimental group was superior to control group both at post-training and at follow-up assessments with respect to all dependent measures of the study and that the basketball skills training produced a decrease in maladaptive behaviors both in the school and in the home. Implications of the results were discussed in relation to the potential roles of sports in the curriculum of the mentally handicapped children.