Growth, Physical Strength, and Athletic Ability
of Hearing-Impaired Children from the Age of 12 to 17

From Body Height, Weight, Grasping Power,
and the Results of Handball Throwing

Akeshi WATANABE, Saburo OKAMOTO,
Ikuro ARAKAWA, Michiyo NIGAURI

We analyzed the annual transitional change in height, weight, grasping power, and handball throwing of newly-enrolled students from the school year of 1988 to 2005 at the Junior High Department of School for the Deaf, University of Tsukuba (present-day Special Needs Education School for the Deaf, University of Tsukuba), and examined relating factors between grip strength and handball throwing. This research brings us the following results: 1) the height and the weight, which show studentsf growth, are almost on the same level of those of the national average at the age of 12, 15, and 17 both for boys and girls. 2) girlsf grasping strength and handball throwing are consistent with the national average. 3) from the results of multiple linear regression analyses of height and weight, the factor that influenced boysf grasping power is their height at the age of 12, and their height and weight at 15 and 17, and as for girl students their weight strongly affects their grasping power at 12, 15, and 17.


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