The Study of How the Training of Walking Impacts Physical Fitness
of Students with Learning Disability
Chao-Chien Chen, Department of Leisure and Recreation Management, Asia University,
Cheng-Chun Chang, Department of Leisure and Recreation Management, Asia University
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of walking training on the health related physical fitness of
mental retardation students. The students with Mental Retardation from the Special Education Section of Puli Junior
High School examined, divided into experimental and control groups of 4 and 4 members using and random assignment
respectively. The analysis is conducted by dependent samples t-test and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The
important results of the study are summarized as-follows: (A) Dependent samples t-test is used to analyze the difference
in the two groups between pre-and post-training. There is a significant difference in cardiopulmonary endurance in the
experimental group analyzed with ANCOVA ( p ＜.05). (B) There are significant differences in muscular endurance,
flexibility and cardiopulmonary endurance in both groups ( p ＜.05). This study suggests that the walking training for 8
weeks has a great improvement in the aerobic capacity of Intellectual mental retardation students.
Keywords : Mmental retardation students, Health related physical fitness.
INTRODUCTION
According to the annual report released by Dept. of Statistics, Ministry of the Interior, Executive Yuan in 2009,
the number of mentally and physically challenged people has reached 1,071,073, among which the mentally challenged
ones are 95,375, roughly 9.4% of the mentally and physically challenged and 0.4% of the national population. With the
increase of age, mentally challenged patients will have a higher likelihood of getting problems such as impaired
neurotic system, decreased capability in moving, obesity, malnutrition, sensory impairment, arthritis, high blood
pressure, cardio-celebrovascular diseases than ordinary people (Kapell, Nightingale, Rodriguez, Lee, Zigerman, &
Schupf, 1998). As some past studies indicated, the mentally retarded are of the disadvantaged group, yet in reality, they
need more medical, social and educational resources than common people; hence, more assistance and intervention in
health promotion is required (Lin, Yen, Li, Wu & Lo 2002).
Physical fitness is constituted with diversely characteristic strengths, which are correlated with the quality or
capability involved with physical movements. Good physical fitness refers to a person whose heart, blood vessels, lungs
and muscular tissues can exert excellent functions, which makes a person not only do routine work effectively but enjoy
his or her leisure life and cope with abrupt conditions as well (Fang, 1997). The results of Liao (1990) have indicated
that exercise is regarded as a method with which one’s health conditions can be elevated, bodily activity enhanced and
life enriched; on the other hand, if without exercise, a person’s bodily functions will decrease and chronic diseases will
slowly occur. Liu (2000) claimed that walking has been a trendy movement across the globe over recent years and is
considered the best whole-body movement. As the number of people has seen an increase, walking is widely recognized
as an exercise that improves health considerably. Not merely can walking move the muscles around arms and thighs, it
can enhance the functions of heart and lungs and increase the metabolism of the body too. Among all sorts of exercises,
walking is the most effective one in maintaining physical strength. A large quantity of research results (Pate, Pratt, Blair,
Haskell, Macera & Bouchard, 1995) stated the aforementioned benefits and recommended a 30-minute walking per day,
so as to retain the health of heart and lungs.
Over the past years, more and more people increase the time and frequency of walking in order to better their
health. Compared to jogging, walking can mitigate the burdens produced from running, especially the impacts on the
joints of knees and ankles, further decreasing the sports harm’s rate (Tsai, Tsou & Tseng, 2007). The research results of
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Li (1999) showed that one recruits muscles to counter against gravity and hold the weight of the body in walking, which
means one employs his/her weight to undertake weight training, which consequently energizes the heart and increases
the blood circulation to the whole body. Lin (2000) proposed that training legs leads to prevention of aging, which has
proved more effective than taking a stroll, and safer than jogging. Even walking in a leisurely fashion, it can consume
10 times fat than usual.
Levinson and Reid (1993) published a study regarding exercise’s effective intensity for mentally challenged
persons, in which 18 people of mental retardation served as subjects, and were divided into two groups. For one group,
roughly 15 minutes’ walking three times a week was administered, whilst for the other group, about 15 minutes’
jogging three times a week was implemented. As the results have shown, in the group of walking, participants’
responses toward physical fitness increased 17.5%, while a 17% increase was displayed in the group of walking.
Although the gap was rather tiny, the intensity of exercise and exercise methods put pressure on the participants. The
focus of the research lies in the consideration for an exercise’s effective intensity, as the mild jogging and still milder
walking both have manifested remarkable effects. From the convenience of undertaking a research, walking is most
recommended.
From the above literature, we hope to intervene in the physical activities of mentally challenged junior high
students by walking, in order to improve the physical fitness of the subjects. Since most of the domestic research papers
concerning the study for physical fitness of students with mental retardation mainly address the comprehension for and
comparison of various mental retardations, few deal with active intervention of exercise. Therefore, the current paper
employs the walking as an intervention for the study of physical fitness, as walking has the advantages of convenience
and easy recognition for the mentally retarded. Tests before and after the eight-week research were done, in order to
compare the differences in the data of physical fitness.
METHODS
Study group
The subjects of this research are eight mild mentally challenged students of Special Education Class in Puli Junior
High School, Nantou County. With the assistance of the chief of Special Education Section, Mr. Sun, in purposive
sampling, which selects eight mild to moderate mentally challenged students as subjects for research, and subsequently
categorizes them into two groups: experimental group (hereunder referred to as EG) and control group (hereunder
referred to as CG).
Experimental procedures
The duration for the research began from November 4 through December 30, 2010. A walking regimen was
designed for the subjects from 7:30 till 8:30 every Thursday morning. Eight subjects were evenly divided into two
groups: EG and CG. A before-test was implemented. An eight-week walking regimen was executed for the EG, while
the CG was told to remain ordinary routine after the completion of the before-test. An after-test of physical fitness
would be implemented after the eight-week walking regimen ends.
The Walking Regimen for EG:
(1) Forms of exercise: Walking is designed as the major exercise for this research, with a warm-up exercise followed.
Subjects will take walking exercise for 40 minutes, which is added by a ten-minute warm-up exercise and a
ten-minute cool-down exercise (shown Table 3). The total time for exercise shall be 60 minutes.
(2) Intensity of exercise: The study employs the Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) formulated by Borg in 1962, in
which the intensity of exercise for EG subjects is between 11 and 15. They are expected to document the heartbeats
and pulses, which shall reach a minimum of 130 per minute and write down their perceived feelings immediately
after exercise each time.
(3) Duration and frequency of exercise: The subjects of the EG shall take 60-minute walking exercises twice per week,
for a length of time of eight weeks. The regimen includes warm-up, walking and cool-down exercises.
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Data processing
The raw material produced from tests was processed by SPSS 12.0 for Windows for a statistics analysis. The
methods taken in the process were as follows:
1. Construct basic data of EG and CG with descriptive statistics.
2. Check the differences between EG’s and CG’s before-test and after-test of physical fitness with the dependent
sample t-test.
3. Use ANCOVA to explore the discrepancies of EG and CG.
4. The level of significance for the statistics of the research is a=.05.
5. Use actual data as a comparison and analyze the growth of numbers in data.
RESULTS
Basic data regarding the subjects
The study chooses eight students of Special Education Class in Puli Junior High School, Nantou County as
subjects. The basic information in regard with age, height, weight and BMI are as follows:
Group
N
EG
CG
4
4
Table 1: Subjects’ Basic Information
Age
Height
M(SD)
M(SD)
14.00(1.154)
163.175(8.916)
14.25(0.957)
156.75(13.709)
Weight
M(SD)
61.40(25.934)
52.23(22.269)
BMI
M(SD)
22.50(7.93)
20.25(5.74)
The comparison of physical fitness of each group
Table 2 and Table 3 display the abstracts of dependent sample t-tests for before-tests and after-tests for EG and
CG. From Table 2, it can be deducted that the cardiorespiratory endurance of EG subjects manifested a significant level
(p＜.05) with dependent sample t-test. On the other hand, the before-tests and after-tests for BMI, Sit and Reach and
Sit-ups did not display a significant level with the employment of dependent sample t-test (p＞.05). From Table 3, it
can be concluded that the before-tests and after-tests of CG subjects on BMI, Sit and Reach, Sit-ups and Progressive
Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (hereunder shortened as PACER) did not show a significant level with
dependent sample t-test (p＞.05).
Table 2: Abstract of Dependent Sample T-tests for Before-tests and After-tests for EG
Before-test N=4
After-test N=4
Source
t
M
SD
M
SD
BMI
22.5
7.93
23.5
7.14
-1.414
Softness
24.75
6.85
24.5
15.8
0.040
Sit-up
26.75
7.973
31.25
6.08
-2.065
cardiorespiratory endurance
58.53
8.03
61.03
7.89
-3.407
p
0.252
0.971
0.131
0.042
*p <.05
Table 3: Abstract of Dependent Sample T-tests for Before-tests and After-tests for CG
Before-test N=4
After-test N=4
Source
t
M
SD
M
SD
BMI
20.25
5.74
20.50
5.07
-0.522
Softness
24.75
13.07
24.5
12.29
0.167
Sit-up
22.75
3.86
22.25
3.50
0.775
cardiorespiratory endurance
54.13
3.85
52.73
4.03
-1.172
p
0.638
0.878
0.495
0.326
*p<.05
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Comparison of the physical fitness of EG and CG
As each participant has different capability of exercise before joining in this research, the before-test results thus
are viewed as Covariate, so as to expel the factors that might affect the results of the experiment. When undertaking
ANCOVA, the homophily of regression coefficient of the group shall be checked. Table 4 is an abstract for the
homophily of regression coefficient of EG and CG, the results of which show that F-value of each test of homophily of
physical fitness does not reach a level of significance (p＞.05), corresponding to the hypothesis for homophily of
regression coefficient.
Table 4: Abstract for the Homophily of Regression Coefficient of Physical Fitness of EG and CG
Source
SS
MS
f
p
BMI
00.011
0.011
0.009
0.929
Softness
0.42
0.42
0.05
0.83
Muscle Fitness
1.658
1.658
0.182
0.692
PACER
0.125
0.125
0.079
0.792
*p＜.05
From the abstract of ANCOVA for the physical fitness of EG and CG in Table 5, it is obvious that walking
training has achieved a significantly remarkable effect on BMI, Sit and Reach, Sit-up and cardiorespiratory endurance
for each participant.
Source
BMI
Sit and Reach
Sit-up
PACER
Table 5: Abstract of ANCOVA for the Physical Fitness of EG ad CG
SS
MS
f
225.092
225.092
229.316
532.219
532.219
84.396
109.385
109.385
14.350
226.961
226.961
177.208
p
0.00
0.00
0.013
0.00
*p＜.05
CONCLUSIONS
Although the eight-week walking training has achieved a slight effect on the BMI, softness, muscular fitness of
the mentally challenged subjects as the actual data has shown, the effect was at best moderate. The result did not
correspond to the research results produced by some domestic scholars (Chuang, 2003 & Li, 2007) The probable
reasons might be a combination of facts: first, the training period was too short; second, the subjects were teenagers at
their puberty; and third, the population size of this research was too small. Walking training did produce effects on the
cardiorespiratory endurance of mentally challenged students, which corresponded to the proposition that regular
exercises, such as walking, dancing and swimming, can effectively increase the cardiorespiratory endurance (ACSM,
2000). This result has proved to be in accordance with most of the studies undertaken domestically and overseas
(Fernhall, 1988; Suter, 1994; Chuang, 2003 & Li, 2007).
Research results indicated that eight-week walking training has achieved a remarkable effect on the
cardiorespiratory endurance of the mentally challenged students. Walking is easy for participants to take and
comprehend, with general characteristics that any person, regardless of age, time or season, whose lower limbs can
function well, without any equipment nor venue, can freely walk and satisfy the needs for exercise in a short period of
time. For the physical fitness of mentally retarded students, most of whom are usually engaged in sedative activities,
walking is of big help and worth being included in the curricular activities on campus. To exclude the constraints
produced from choosing only mentally challenged students as subjects, various special educational groups of different
ages shall be considered to include and make comparisons so as to detect the differences of training effects. With regard
to BMI, softness and muscular fitness, it is recommended to apply different ways of test to further understand the
effects and influences walking may produce on physical fitness.
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