Open AccessHOW THE INTEGRATED YOGA PRACTICE IMPACTS THE VISUAL PROCESSING OF SPECIALLY ABLED CHILDREN?
Author(s) -
Merin Chandanathil,
. Kunal,
Kishan Kadur
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
paripex indian journal of research
Language(s) - English
DOI - 10.36106/paripex/6207530
Subject(s) - meditation , cognition , psychology , visual processing , intervention (counseling) , affect (linguistics) , audiology , medicine , developmental psychology , psychiatry , communication , neuroscience , philosophy , theology , perception
Background and objectives: To investigate if integrated yoga practice affect the Visuo-spatial Cognition of SpeciallyAbled Children.Material and method: Eighty clinically diagnosed mentally challenged persons aged between 12 - 25 years wererandomly allotted to control and study groups. Study group practiced Pranayama (Nadishodhan and Kapalbhati),Aumchanting and Meditation for 30 minutes daily, 6 days in a week for 3 weeks.Control group carried on with their normalschool routine.Visual Processing was studied for a) Visual- Spatial Relation b) Picture Recognition and c) Planning.Theparameters were measured twice,once before the starting of the intervention and later at the end of follow-up period.Results: Both the groups were comparable in their baseline scores.At follow-up,scores of the visual- spatial relation andpicture recognition showed significant improvements in both the groups,but,the change in the scores of planning wassignificant only in study group. However,the improvement in all three categories were significantly higher in the studygroup as compared to the control group.Interpretation and Conclusion: This study demonstrates the beneficial influences of pranayama and meditation onVisual Processing, suggests that pranayama and meditation improves the performance of prefrontal lobe and othercortical and subcortical areas and their neuronal connection involved in this process.It may further contribute in improvement of overall intelligence of mentally retarded persons.