DIFFERENCES IN CERTAIN MOTOR ABILITIES BETWEEN CROATIAN AND GERMAN PUPILS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES

The aim of this paper is to determine the significance of differences in motor skills between Croatian and German pupils with intellectual disabilities, taking into account as a criterion variable number of hours of physical education (PE) per week. We examined 188 participants from the Croatia and 788 participants from Germany who are in the school system and who have a mandatory 2 (Croatian) or 3 (German) hours of PE per week. All used tests are standardized by SOI (Special Olympics International. The following tests were conducted: partial sit-up test, time stand test and singe leg stance test eyes open left/right. The obtained results indicate a significant difference in all tests between populations. Croatian population achieved better statistical results in sit-up test and singe leg stance test eyes open left/right although it has only two hours of PE per week. In addition, German population achieved better results in time stand test as it was expected due to more hours of PE per week. One of the main reasons for such results could be specifics of researched population whose motor skills cannot develop to its full capacity, and in the normal population, expected results would be better in all tests for population who had more hours of PE per week.