Background/Purpose There is limited evidence concerning the effectiveness of continued walking exercise programs to students with hearing impairment in Korea. The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of an 18-week walking exercise program on the locomotor skills of children with hearing impairment.
Method A total of 22 students with hearing impairment was purposively selected in Pusan, Korea and assigned to the control group [n=11, age 11.45±1.64 year; height 139.5±10.49 cm; weight 38.55±9.61kg] and the experimental group [n=11, age 10.36±1.80; height 141.6±16.14 cm; weight 37.61±8.88 kg]. No significant differences were found between two groups on age, weight, and height. A walking exercise program was developed for this study with the emphasis on balance and motor development. The program was taking place five times a week for 50-min each for 18-week. The TGMD-2 (Ulrich, 2000) was used to measure the effectiveness of the walking exercise program on locomotor skills (i.e., run, gallop, hop, leap, horizontal jump, and slide). Each group was measured three times during the pre-, mid- (9-week), and post-phase (18-week). Data collection process was also videotaped to ensure interobserver agreement.
Analysis/Results A repeated measures two-way ANOVA found significant interaction effect on the run, gallop, hop, leap, horizontal jump, and slide (p <.001). Results also showed significant improvement in locomotor skills from the 9th to the 18th week.
Conclusions Results of the present study indicated that a continued walking program might have a positive effect in locomotor skills in Korean students with hearing impairment.