title: Yoga-teaching protocol adapted for children with visual impairment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Childhood visual deficiency impairs children's neuro-psychomotor development, considerably affecting physical, mental, social, and emotional health. Yoga's multifaceted approach may help children with visual impairment (VI) to cope with their challenges.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study aimed to develop a special protocol for teaching yoga to children with VI, and to evaluate their preferred method of learning.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study was carried out at Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind, Bengaluru, South India. Forty-one students volunteered to learn yoga practices, and classes were held weekly 5 days, 1 hr per session for 16 weeks. The study introduced a new method using a sequence of five teaching steps: verbal instructions, tactile modeling, step-by-step teaching, learning in a group, and physical guidance. A questionnaire concerning the preferred steps of learning was then given to each student, and verbal answers were obtained.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 33 (out of 41), aged 11.97 ± 1.94, 15 girls and 18 boys responded. Twenty-six (78.79%) chose physical guidance as their most favored learning mode.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Specially designed protocol may pave the way to impart yoga in an exciting and comfortable way to children with VI. More studies are needed to further investigate the effectiveness of this new yoga protocol in similar settings.
authors: Division of Yoga and Humanities, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana Yoga University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
authors: Soubhagyalaxmi
authors: S
authors: Mohanty
authors: Division of Yoga and Humanities, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana Yoga University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
authors: Alex
authors: A
authors: Hankey
authors: Division of Yoga and Humanities, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana Yoga University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
authors: Balaram
authors: B
authors: Pradhan
authors: Division of Yoga and Humanities, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana Yoga University, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
authors: Rajashree
authors: R
authors: Ranjita
keywords: Health; physical activity; practice; teaching method; visual impairment