Comparing the Relationship between Fine Motor Skills and Demographic Indexes in Healthy and Hard of Hearing Elementary Students Download PDF

Introduction: given the importance of function of our hands in our daily lives, it is crucially important to be aware of accidents that might disturb its function in childhood. Hearing is an essential prerequisite for mental and muscular growth; so much so that numerous studies have reported that there is a relationship between balance disorder in children and their hearing impairment. Therefore, the present study has aimed to examine the relationship between fine motor skills and demographic indexes in healthy and hard of hearing students. Methods and materials: this study is a descriptive – analytical research and the initial and preliminary reviews and the clinical descriptions in the study were done by using O’Connors’ demographic questionnaire. The Purdue Pegboard Test was used for evaluating fine motor skills. The data obtained from the Purdue Pegboard Test and O’Connors’ questionnaire was statistically analyzed by using the comparison of means test (independent two-sample t-test) and the statistical software SPSS 23. Results: results obtained from this research suggest that mean of each of the five tests is indicative of a statistically significant difference between the two groups of students (healthy and hard of hearing students) (p-value<0.001). The results show that gender of the healthy and the hard of hearing students doesn’t have a significant impact on obtaining better scores on the skills under study. The analytical results of the comparison made between the skills of left-handed and right-handed students indicate that there is no statistically significant difference between the students in the two groups. Conclusion: although acquiring motor skills in this study has not been under the influence of gender of the healthy or hard of hearing students or their being left-handed or right-handed, but given the significant and explicit difference between the hard of hearing and healthy students in terms of their motor skills, it is necessary to detect and treat hearing impairments of children as soon as possible, so that it would be easier for their motor skills to improve.