Team sport benefits for adaptive capability of adolescents with inborn and acquired visual impairments

Фотографии: 

ˑ: 

PhD D.V. Savchenko
PhD, Associate Professor V.V. Pchelinova
PhD, Associate Professor V.N. Feofanov
PhD A.G. Udodov
Russian State Social University, Moscow

 

Keywords: adaptive capability, adolescents with inborn or acquired visual impairments, team sports, goalball.

Introduction. In social psychology, adaptive capability of a person is defined as an integrating property of mental health [4, 7]. Adolescents with acquired visual impairments are for some reason or another usually placed into the group of those with low adaptive capability in relation to the environment.   For example, some studies analyzing stress tolerance of a person emphasize the impact of anxiety and mental stress on the adaptive capability of an individual. A person with a high level of anxiety tends to perceive the world as a threat to his/her existence [1, 5].

In groups of people, especially in III-IV type boarding schools, where both partially sighted and totally blind children and adolescents study together, an unhealthy stressful atmosphere is created that is made even more complicated by psychological conflicts caused by the fact that the blind and visually impaired do not understand each other, by insufficient attention to newcomers as well as a negative mental state of those children who have recently experienced vision loss [2, 5, 7].

Numerous studies have shown that team sports are beneficial for the wellbeing of adolescents with disabilities and for their psyche in general, contributing to their adaptive capability enhancement [2, 9, 10].

That is why we have chosen goalball for studying the benefits of team sports for adaptive capability enhancement in adolescents with inborn or acquired visual impairments. This game is designed for people with visual impairments. It can awaken a zest for life, instill the love of movement, of physical intensity for the sake of team’s performance in visually impaired people and promote the integration of the children and adolescents into the society via sport [2, 3, 6, 8].

Objective of the study was to explore the team sport benefits for the adaptive capability of adolescents with inborn or acquired visual impairments.  

Research method and organization. Subject to the empirical study were 52 vision-deficient adolescents aged 12.6±2.3 years on average studying in SBEI “Boarding school №1 for education and rehabilitation of the blind” in Moscow. Comparative study of the adaptive capability of the adolescents with inborn and acquired visual impairments was of the utmost importance to us. Thus, the subject adolescents were classified into two groups with inborn (SG-1) (n=27) and acquired (SG-2) (n=25) visual impairments. We proposed an adaptive capability improvement team sport course for the two groups. The following progress rating tests were used under the study: Adaptive Potential Calculation index by R.M. Baevskiy et al.; Spielberger-Hanin State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) test; and WAM (Wellbeing-Activity-Mood) tests. These tests were used before and after applying the program.

The proposed adaptive capability improvement team sport course for visually impaired adolescents presupposes an integrated use of conditioning, lead-up exercises and active games as well as psychotechnical exercises.  

Training sessions of the proposed program were held twice a week for 5 months, each session lasting 60 minutes. These were off-class sessions in a specialized team sports club (goalball, torball) and consisted of  conditioning exercises; lead-up exercises geared to master the structure of specific motor actions of goalball; active games and psychotechnical exercises (relaxation, self-regulation of fitness shape, etc). 

Results and discussion. The observation stage of the empirical study showed that by the calculated index of adaptive capability (AC) the adolescents with inborn visual impairments (SG-1) had predominant strain of the adaptation mechanisms that manifested itself by decreased reserves of the functional systems and was recorded in 49.2% of cases. Adaptation failure was also recorded in 4.8% of cases. 

Special attention was drawn to the adolescents with acquired visual impairments (SG-2). A history of chronic diseases as well as various eye injuries leading to disability were reflected in the course of adaptation processes. In particular, satisfactory adaptation was observed in 9.8% of visually impaired adolescents of this group only, which was significantly less compared with the visually impaired adolescents from SG-1 (p<0.01). Adaptation failure was observed in 22% of the surveyed adolescents, which was also significantly higher than the first sample indices (p<0.01).

Further objects of our study were the level of personal anxiety of the subjects and their wellbeing, activity and mood. Thus, Spielberger-Hanin State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) test results allow to conclude that the majority of the subjects from the study groups showed moderate and high levels of personal anxiety, namely in SG-1 (50% and 39.3%, respectively), in SG-2 (46.7% and 50%, respectively).  

WAM test results obtained in the groups enabled us to draw the following conclusion: the visually impaired adolescents from SG-1 demonstrated the highest rates with regard to wellbeing (4.04±0.06) and mood (3.99±0.04) compared with the adolescents from SG-2 (3.99±0.05 and 3.92±0.02, respectively). The adolescents from SG-2, in their turn, had the highest level of activity (3.98±0.05) compared with those from SG-1. It should be noted that no significant differences in wellbeing, activity and mood indices were observed between the two study groups.  

Upon completion of the observation stage of the empirical study we had conducted training sessions in accordance with the proposed program for 5 months, after which the evaluation stage of the empirical study was held using the same set of tests. 

The evaluation stage led us to the conclusion that the high personal anxiety indices of the SG-1 adolescents noticeably lower than before the experiment (25% and 39.3%, respectively) (p<0.05).

The highest growth rates were observed in the adolescents from SG-2. In particular, 50% of the SG-2 adolescents demonstrated high personal anxiety level before the experiment, and only 23.3% of them demonstrated the same level after it (p<0.01).

As far as the Wellbeing-Activity-Mood test is concerned, a difference in the wellbeing indices was observed in the study groups; it decreased and in SG-2 (4.14±0.04) almost reached the same value as in SG-1 (4.16±0.05) in terms of the absolute measure. No significant differences in this index were observed in the study groups.

However, when comparing the performance of each group before and after using the programs developed by the authors, we can see that statistically significant growth was recorded in SG-1 with regard to activity t = 3.13 (р<0.01) as well as in SG-2 with regard to wellbeing t = 2.5 (р<0.01) and mood t = 3.25 (p<0.01). The results first of all indicate an improvement of the psychophysiological state of the visually impaired adolescents of the study groups, which will contribute to enhancement of their adaptive capabilities in the future.  

Finally, the last objective of the observation stage of the empirical study was a recalculation of the adaptive capability (AC) index which also underwent significant changes. In particular, the number of people with a satisfactory adaptation level in the group of adolescents with inborn visual impairments (SG-1) more than doubled (27% and 56%, respectively), indicating normal operation of the body’s physiological systems. In addition, not a single adaptation failure was observed in the group. Performance of the visually impaired adolescents from SG-2 also improved; in particular, a satisfactory adaptation level was demonstrated by 19.7% of the subjects instead of 9.8% of them before the program completion. It should be noted that adaptation failures were observed in 3% of the subjects from SG-2 only, instead of 22% at the beginning of the study. 

Conclusion. Statistically significant progress of the wellbeing and mood rates was observed in the adolescents with the acquired visual impairments, and of activity rates - in the adolescents with the inborn visual impairments. Statistically significant reduction of the personal anxiety rates was recorded in the adolescents with the acquired visual impairments. Both of the test groups showed satisfactory adaptive capability rates following the training course, with the effect being most remarkable in the group with the inborn visual impairments. The study gave the grounds to recommend the adolescent's adaptive capability improvement team sport course for the relevant health correction and education institutions in application to blind and partially sighted children and for general education schools serving large numbers of visually impaired children.

References                                         

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Corresponding author: SavchenkoDV@rgsu.net

 

Abstract

The study was designed to explore the team sport benefits for the adaptive capability of adolescents with inborn or acquired visual impairments – based on the goalball training course designed by the authors. The following progress rating tests were used under the study: Adaptive Potential Calculation index by R.M. Baevskiy et al.; Spielberger-Hanin State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) test; and WAM (Wellbeing-Activity-Mood) tests. Subject to the empirical study were 52 vision-deficient adolescents aged 12.6±2.3 years on average. The subject adolescents were classified into two groups with inborn (n=27) and acquired (n=25) visual impairments. The study showed benefits of the training course as verified by the statistically significant progress of the wellbeing and mood rates in the group with acquired visual impairments (AVI) and the activity rates in the group with inborn visual impairments (IVI); with the AVI group additionally tested with a notable reduction of the personal anxiety rates. The both test groups showed satisfactory adaptive capability rates following the training course, with the effect being most remarkable in the IVI group. The study data and analyses gave the grounds to recommend the adolescent adaptive capability improvement team sport course for the relevant health correction and education institutions in application to blind and partially sighted children and for the general education schools serving large numbers of visually impaired children.