Motor and Perceptual Abilities among Adults with Intellectual Disability

Abstract

The present study experimentally investigated the motor and perceptual abilities among adults with intellectual disability (ID). This research is focused on the motor and perceptual abilities, visuomotor integration and short-term memory, and dexterity of the right and left hands of adults with mild and moderate ID). The researcher has randomly chosen the participants of 30 adults with Mild ID and 30 adults with Moderate ID belonging to the age level of 18 to 23. And also, the researcher has randomly chosen the control students who were 28 students of classes 2 and 3 for the adults with Mild ID and 30 students of UKG and class 1 for the adults with Moderate ID from different schools. The tools used for this study are the Bender Gestalt II and Finger Dexterity Test. This study employs a Descriptive Research Design, integrating key statistical measures such as Mean and Standard Deviation to gain insights into sample characteristics. Additionally, an inferential statistical method including the t-test is specifically employed to assess significant differences in motor and perceptual abilities, visuomotor integration, and short-term memory and dexterity among adults with mild and moderate intellectual disability. The Pearson Correlation is used to describe the strength and direction of the linear relationship between two quantitative variables. Bar Graphs which are the pictorial representation of data and Scatter Plots are the graphs that present the relationship between two variables in a data-set. This design allows for a comprehensive understanding of the studied psychological variables within the context of intellectual disability. The use of both descriptive and inferential statistics ensures a comprehensive analysis of these variables within the study population. Based on the contribution of a previous study by Patidar, Sharma, and Singh, 2002, the researcher drew out the findings of this study. The motor and perceptual abilities, visuomotor integration, and short-term memory of adults with mild ID is similar to the students of classes 2 and 3 and moderate ID is similar to the students of UKG and class 1. There is also significant difference in motor ability, perceptual ability, visuomotor integration and short term memory between adults with mild ID and moderate ID. On the other hand, right-hand finger dexterity in seconds and errors with mild ID are similar to the students of classes 2 and 3. Instead, there is a significant difference in left-hand finger dexterity in seconds between adults with mild ID and students of classes 2 and 3. Also, the right and left-hand finger dexterity errors of adults with moderate ID is similar to the students of UKG and class 1. There is also significant difference in the right and left hand finger dexterity in seconds and errors between adults with mild and moderate ID. There is no significant relationship in the motor ability and perceptual ability among adults with mild ID. But there is significant relationship in the visuomotor integration and short term memory among adults with mild ID is accepted. And there is no significant relationship in the motor ability and perceptual ability among adults with moderate ID. But there is no significant relationship in the visuomotor integration and short term memory among adults with moderate ID. This study revealed the mental age (MA) of adults with mild ID is 7.5 who have average chronological age (CA) of 21.07 and the MA of adults with moderate ID is 5.5 who have the average CA of 20.8.