VIDBE-Q 2025 Volume 70 Issue 4
deafblindness and physical activity is scarce. More research in developmental
milestone delays is necessary for children with CHARGE and Usher syndrome to
determine their effects and possible interventions. The results from this review
revealed that in every balance and motor skills test children without deafblindness
performed better than the children with deafblindness. These findings align with
other studies that have investigated sensory impairments in physical performance.
Children with CHARGE syndrome or deafblindness tend to have developmental
delays such as balance, cognitive, and motor delays (Haibach & Lieberman, 2013).
Balance is a crucial element to performing everyday tasks and is maintained
by the body's ability to use visual and vestibular inputs of the body's position in its
environment to maintain postural control. More than 80% of children with
CHARGE syndrome have low vision or blindness in one or both eyes (Issekutz et
al., 2005). Many children with CHARGE syndrome possess abnormalities of the
vestibular organs in the inner ear (Hartshorne & Slavin, 2023). Therefore, the poor
balance performance scores found in this review are understandable as most of the
studies included participants with CHARGE syndrome. Similar studies examining
children with one sensory impairment, deafness or blindness, found that children
with the impairments also performed behind their sighted and hearing peers on
balance tests.
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