Effect of Yoga Practice on Motor Function among Children with Hearing Impairment

Children with disabilities like hearing impairment often show disorders at motor development as well as coordination. In view of this, the present investigation was carried out to determine whether yoga practices can be a potentially helpful tool to improve motor abilities of disabled children. For this study, a total of fifty physically disabled children were divided into two groups first being the control group and the other being experimental group. Children belonging to both experimental and control group were assessed at the start of the study i.e. on the first day and after 12 weeks of the yoga intervention. The yoga practices focussed on the reaction ability, agility and balance related asanas. Only the children belonging to experimental group were subjected to training of yoga practices, for 1 hr each day for a total period of 12 weeks. The within group comparison results showed that there is statistically significant (p<0.05) improvement in neuromuscular coordination, eye hand coordination, agility, and balance in subjects of experimental or yoga group however no such change was observed in control group. Hence, it is clear from the study that regular yoga practice can be used as an effective method for improving motor abilities of physically disabled children.