The comparison of static balance values of hearing-impaired elite male athletes

The current study included 32 voluntary hearing impaired participants; 11 hearing-impaired basketball players from Turkish olympic national team; 11 taekwando players along with 10 male sedantery students from Ankara Kemal Yurtbilir Special Education Vocational High School. The hearing-impaired taekwondo players? Y, X = 24,64 ± 6,407, hearing-impared national basketball players? Y, ?= 22,36 ± 3,722, and sedanters? Y, ?= 18,00 ± 0,66. The flexibility test of the participants? was sit and reach, the agility test was Illinois Agility Test (IAT). The Statical Postural balance test was conducted with Biodex Stability System device. It was especially taken into concentration that on the test day, the participants did not have any disturbances and they did not have effects of training fatigue (that they had the last training 48 hours ago. Statistical analysis were conducted through SPSS 19 packet software. The statistical meaningful level was determined as 0.05. The data collected from the participants showed normal variance and homogenity based on their groups, therefore non-parametric statistical analyses were used. The inter-group comparisons were analysed with Kruskal-Wallis test, and double checked with Mann Whitney-U test. Right-left foot balance data were compared with non-parametrik Mann Whitney-U test. As a conclusion, this study have shown parallelism with the other studies. In this context, it can be said that long-term regular exercises have made a positive contribution to the balance control of hearing-impaired athletes compared to the sedantary people. Keywords: Hearing-impaired, static balance, taekwondo, basketbol