Gross motor skills performance in Italian children with and without visual impairment: assess to improve.

The aim of this study is to assess gross motor skills performance of Italian children with and without visual impairment (VI) to quantify the existing gap and to provide an empirical basis to build for VI children a more achieving setting of development to increase their skills for inclusion. 19 VI children (M age = 9,3 years) and 19 sighted children (M age= 8.2 Years) participated. TGMD-2 was used to assess the gross motor skills. The results showed that children with VI had significantly lower both locomotor skills and object control skills than sighted children. Differences were found in relation to the degree of visual impairment: blind children had significantly lower locomotor and object control skills than severe VI children. Practical implications are provided. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS? This paper, assessing Italian VI children gross motor skills, collects data useful to make comparisons with results of studies made in other countries and to provide an empirical base for improvement of VI children early intervention programs.