effect of some disabilities on physical growth of primary school pupils in Assiut city

This study aimed to assess the effect of some disabilities on physical growth of primary school pupils in Assiut city. This study was conducted at all disability boarding schools in Assiut city namely El-Fekria school for mentally retarded pupils, El-Nour for blind pupils, El-Amal schools for hearing and speech impairment [one school for boys and one for girls] and El- Galaa primary school for normal pupils. The total number of the study subjects was 600 pupils divided to 300 disabled pupils and 300 normal pupils which were taken as a control group. Two tools were developed by the researchers to collect the data needed for the study. First tool was interview sheet, it consisted of three parts. The first one was concerned with personal and socio-demographic characteristics of the studied pupils. It included age, sex, residence, birth order, grade of education, type of disability, parent education, and parent occupation. The second part covered the history of disability as family history. The third part involved assessment of parent's knowledge about nutritional habits, physical exercise for the child and their knowledge about disability. The second tool was a sheet used to record weight, height, chest, mid upper arm circumference and skin fold thickness for studied pupils. Data was collected during the period from the middle of September 2007 to the end of December 2007. Results of the present study revealed 61% of disabled pupils were males and 77.7% from rural areas. Statistically significant differences were found between consanguinity of parents of disabled and control pupils and their socio-demographic and health characteristics. The result also showed that 63%, 61.5% and 50% who had visual hearing, speech and mental disabilities respectively had history of consanguinity. It was clear that all parents of disabled pupils had no knowledge about the care of children who has any type of disability. Statistically significant differences were found between height, weight, chest circumference and subcutaneous skin fold thickness between and studied school pupils P= 0.000, P= 0.002 and P=0.000 respectively. Statistically significant differences were disabled found between the different types of disability [visual, auditory, and mentally] in body mass index. The study recommended that periodic examination or check up for disabled children in order to make sure that their growth is normal, encouraging the couple to make premarital examination to prevent hereditary diseases and congenital anomalies, particularly by a qualified nurse and training of the school health nurses should emphasize care, follow up and coping with disabled children