Effects of SPARK Program on Fine and Gross Motor Skills and BDNF in Educable Intellectual Disabled Children

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a curriculum known as Sports, Play and Active Recreation for Kids (SPARK) on fine and gross motor skills and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in educable intellectual disabled children.

Twenty intellectual disabled boy students aged 7 to 9 years were randomly divided into experimental (n=10) and control (n=10) groups. The experimental group performed a selected SPARK program 3 days a week for 12 weeks. Fine and gross motor skills and BDNF level were measured before and after the intervention. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with repeated measures was used for data analysis (α = 0.05).

Data revealed that there were no significant differences between two groups in any of the measured variables at the baseline. After the intervention, the experimental group performed significantly better in fine motor skills and had higher level of BDNF as compared to the control group. Regarding gross motor skills, there were no significant differences between experimental and control groups in the post-test.

According to the results, it can be argued that the selected SPARK program increases BDNF level and improves fine motor skills however it has not significant effect on gross motor skills in the educable intellectual disabled boy students. Thus, it seems that improves in fine motor skills partially are due to increases of brain-derived neurotrophins especially BDNF levels in the educable intellectual disability boy students.