Introduction: Researches show that mentally retarded children have a significant difference with their peers in skills such as hand-eye coordination, manual skills, and the speed of performing these types of skills. Weakness in the fine skills of the fingers and coordination between the child's eyes and motor organs has an inappropriate effect on the learning process at higher ages and causes a lack of self-confidence in the child. Considering the importance of the topic, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of fine motor exercises on hand-eye coordination and writing speed of mentally retarded children.
Methodology: The research method was semi-experimental with a single-experiment structure. For this purpose, two 10-year-old boys with teachable mental disabilities were selected from among the first grade students of Yazdbaspar educational complex in Yazd city in the academic year of 2023-2024 based on a diagnostic interview based on DSM-V by purposive sampling method. In order to measure the variables of the current research, Purdue pegboard test (to measure hand-eye coordination) and stopwatch (to measure the time taken to write the text in seconds) were used. The program of selected exercises including the training of fine movements for one month (8 training sessions and each session for 30 minutes) was implemented on both subjects. After the implementation of the training program, hand-eye coordination and writing speed sub-tests were performed again. The results were analyzed using the dependent t-test in SPSS 26 software at the level of 0.05.
Results: The findings showed that hand-eye coordination scores and writing speed improved in both subjects after the implementation of the selected one-month training program compared to the pre-test (P≤0.05).
Conclusion: According to the results of the study, it is suggested to use fine motor exercises to improve and improve hand-eye coordination and writing speed of mentally retarded children.