The Tendency for Slow Whole-body Reaction Time in Hearing Impaired Children

Abstract

Sports for the handicapped are now becoming popular, and athletic games events are gradually and widely increasing.
Our interest has been focused on research concerning the agility in physical fitness of the handicapped, despite the limited number of available studies. The purpose of this study is to observe agility by measuring whole-body reaction time in hearing impaired children, and to compare it with the normal reaction time. The results were as follows:
Reaction times evoked by auditory and visual signals in the hearing impaired were slower than that of normal children. The visual signal tended to shorten the reaction time, as compared with auditory signals. Both reaction time and performance time of the hearing impaired boy tended to be faster than that of the hearing impaired girl. These results indicate evidence of decreased agility in the hearing impaired, and the necessity to improve sports deducation techniques for the handicapped.