Assessment and comparison of auditory and visual reaction time in abacus trained and untrained students aged 8 to 13 years in the south Indian population

BACKGROUND: Hand-eye coordination is essential for our daily activities. It involves the accuracy and concentration with which an individual performs tasks. Memory tasks like abacus involve the increased use of the superior and middle frontal gyrus, the motor region of the cerebral cortex, which improves the blood supply to this region, and nourishment to the neurons. This enhances neural plasticity in the developing age, which, in turn, improves the rapidity and precision of physical responses to various stimuli. OBJECTIVES: To assess and compare the reaction times of children who have undergone abacus training and those who have not undergone abacus training in the age group of 8–13 years. METHODS: It is a cross-sectional study, selected by Indian Council of Medical Research- Short Term Studentship 2018, approved by the undergraduate research monitoring committee, and institutional ethics committee. The research study was conducted in a central school in Puducherry among age-matched and body mass index (BMI)-matched healthy children aged between 8 and 13 years who were undergoing abacus training and who did not receive abacus training. Anthropometric parameters such as weight, height, and BMI were measured. Following that, the auditory (ART) and visual reaction time (VRT) of the participants were measured using a recognition reaction time apparatus. RESULTS: The auditory and visual reaction time in the study group was significantly less than that of the control group (P = 0.04 for ART and P = 0.001 for VRT). INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSION: This study concludes that students trained in memory tasks like abacus have better hand-eye coordination as recorded by their enhanced processing speed, thereby decreased response to auditory and visual stimuli when compared with untrained students.