Qld: Researchers study top cricketers to help blind kids

AAP General News (Australia)
12-12-2003
Qld: Researchers study top cricketers to help blind kids

By Janelle Miles

BRISBANE, Dec 12 AAP - Researchers are studying some of the world's best cricketers
as part of a project to help young children with severe vision problems.

The study by researchers at Queensland's Griffith University is part of a much broader
project which will examine the eye sight of 600 elite sportsmen and women, including Olympic
divers as well as tennis, hockey and rugby players.

Associate Professor Brendan Bartlett and Doctor Afaf Tourky, of the university's education
faculty, have already examined the sight of 250 cricketers, including some members of
the Queensland Bulls this week.

The three-year research project, being funded by a $300,000 grant, represents a bold
departure from the usual way of approaching severe vision problems in children which has
historically centred around those with impairment and how they've coped with their disability.

"The existing research literature used by education departments, teachers and universities
around the world is based mainly on ... the deficiency end of vision," Prof Bartlett said.

"But ... where vision is working so wonderfully and so automatically (as in elite sports
people) it may hold insights there for us that we haven't yet plumbed."

Prof Bartlett said elite cricketers with colour blindness were expected to be particularly
valuable to researchers who wanted to find out how they'd reached the top in their sport
despite having vision challenges.

"A red/green colour blindness would be very debilitating for a cricketer, you'd think," he said.

"To find out how a person with colour blindness who has survived and developed ...

up through the junior ranks to international level would be a great leap."

Although the researchers need much more information before they can make generalisations,
Prof Bartlett said they believed an individual's motivation to find adaptive solutions
may be a big factor.

So while some talented young cricketers may go off and "play marbles" after realising
their colour blindness, others put a strategy in place and reach the top regardless.

Prof Bartlett hopes they can use the information from the research to devise new education
strategies to help young children better cope with their vision impairment.

Dr Tourky is the mother of Sydney Olympics bronze medal-winning diver Loudy Tourky,
who she plans to approach to take part in the research.

AAP jhm/sc/cbs/jlw

KEYWORD: VISION (PIX AVAILABLE)

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