VIDBE-Q 2025 Volume 70 Issue 4
Children with sensory impairments tend to participate in even less physical
activity than youth without disabilities (Lieberman, et al., 2006). This is perhaps
not surprising considering sensory systems affords critical information for balance
and movement. The visual system provides the brain with a picture of the
surrounding environment and is the most important sense of balance (Hatzitaki,
2002). The vestibular system, located in the inner ear, senses linear and circular
motion (Ator, 2019). The central nervous system interprets the sensory information
and then signals muscle synergists to contract to maintain postural control and
produce coordinated movements. The visual and auditory systems work together to
provide exteroception, which is important for understanding the body's position in
space (Herms, 2023). If a child has both hearing and visual impairments, they will
have limited sensory information needed to balance and maintain postural control.
Therefore, it is not surprising that children with visual impairments participate in
less physical activity and have a lower level of fitness than sighted children (Stuart
et al., 2006).
The National Center for Deafblindness (2022) characterizes deafblindness as
a rare condition in which an individual has combined hearing and vision loss, thus
limiting access to both auditory and visual information. There are over 10,000
children in the United States with deafblindness (NCDB, 2022). A 2019 survey
that examined 1,000 children found that 0.1%-0.2% of children are born blind and
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