Abstract
Objectives
To use a quantitative approach to examine the effects of chronic physical activity
(PA) interventions on executive functions (EFs) in children aged 3–7 years.
Design
Systematic review and meta-analysis.
Methods
PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PsycINFO, and the
China National Knowledge Infrastructure were searched from their inception to December
2019. Intervention studies with a control group that examined the effects of chronic
PA interventions on EFs among children aged 3–7 years were included in this meta-analysis.
Lastly, subgroup analyses were conducted to examine the potential modifying effects
of chronic PA intervention’s characteristics and study quality.
Results
A total of 10 studies were included in this meta-analysis with a total of 716 participants.
The fixed-effects model was used to estimate the pooled effect sizes since heterogeneity
across included studies was not significant. The summary effects revealed that chronic
PA interventions have a small but positive effects on participants’ overall EFs [standardized
mean difference (SMD) = 0.35, 95% CI: 0.20–0.50] as well as inhibition (SMD = 0.37,
95% CI: 0.12–0.62) and working memory (SMD = 0.24, 95% CI: 0.02–0.46) domains and
a moderate effect on the cognitive flexibility domain (SMD = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.28–1.05).
Lastly, the pooled effect was not significantly modified by intervention duration,
session length, or frequency.
Conclusions
Chronic PA interventions, especially PA plus cognitive challenges interventions, may
be a promising way to promote the development of multiple aspects of EFs in children
aged 3–7 years.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of Science and Medicine in SportAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Neuronal mechanisms of executive control by the prefrontal cortex.Neurosci Res. 2001; 39: 147-165
- Executive functions.Annu Rev Psychol. 2013; 64: 135-168
- The contribution of executive functions to emergent mathematic skills in preschool children.Dev Neuropsychol. 2004; 26: 465-486
- School readiness: integrating cognition and emotion in a neurobiological conceptualization of children’s functioning at school entry.Am Psychol. 2002; 57: 111-127
- Executive control and dimensions of problem behaviors in preschool children.J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2011; 52: 33-46
- A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011; 108: 2693-2698
- Association between childhood behaviors and adult employment earnings in Canada.JAMA Psychiatry. 2019; 76: 1044-1051
- Executive functions and their disorders.Br Med Bull. 2003; 65: 49-59
- Executive function deficits in preschool children with ADHD and DBD.J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2012; 53: 111-119
- Assessing executive function in preschoolers.Neuropsychol Rev. 2012; 22: 345-360
- Conclusions about interventions, programs, and approaches for improving executive functions that appear justified and those that, despite much hype, do not.Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2016; 18: 34-48
- Physical activity, exercise, and physical fitness: definitions and distinctions for health-related research.Public Health Rep. 1985; 100: 126-131
- Effects of chronic exercise interventions on executive function among children and adolescents: a systematic review with meta-analysis.Br J Sports Med. 2019; 53: 1397-1404
- A meta-analysis on the anxiety-reducing effects of acute and chronic exercise. Outcomes and mechanisms.Sports Med. 1991; 11: 143-182
- Effects of a 3-month vigorous physical activity intervention on eating behaviors and body composition in overweight and obese boys and girls.J Sport Health Sci. 2019; 8: 170-176
- Correlations of depression and total mood disturbance with physical activity and self-concept in preadolescents enrolled in an after-school exercise program.Psychol Rep. 2005; 96: 891-898
- A school-based exercise intervention elicits substantial bone health benefits: a 2-year randomized controlled trial in girls.Pediatrics. 2003; 112: e447-e452
- The effect of physical activity interventions on children’s cognition and metacognition: a systematic review and meta-analysis.J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2017; 56: 729-738
- Effects of physical activity on executive functions, attention and academic performance in preadolescent children: a meta-analysis.J Sci Med Sport. 2017; 21: 501-507
- Effects of a physical education intervention on cognitive function in young children: randomized controlled pilot study.BMC Pediatr. 2011; 11
- The impacts of coordinative exercise on executive function in kindergarten children: an ERP study.Exp Brain Res. 2013; 225: 187-196
- Effects of integrated physical exercises and gestures on preschool’s foreign language vocabulary learning.Educ Psychol Rev. 2015; 27: 413-426
- The effect of sports games on observation and memory in preschool children: a experimental study.CHN J Sch Health. 2015; : 1888-1890
- Effect of the children’s health activity motor program on motor skills and self-regulation in head start preschoolers: an efficacy trial.Front Public Health. 2016; 4: 173
- Effects of structured physical activity program on Chinese young children’s executive functions and perceived physical competence in a day care center.Biomed Res Int. 2017; 20175635070
- Head, toes, knees, skip! Improving preschool children’s executive function through a motor competence intervention.J Sport Exerc Psychol. 2018; 40: 233-239
- Home-based exergaming on preschoolers’ energy expenditure, cardiovascular fitness, body mass index and cognitive flexibility: a randomized controlled trial.J Clin Med. 2019; 8: 1745
- The effect of 8-week soccer exercise with medium intensity on executive function in preschool children.CHN Sport Sci and Tech. 2015; : 43-50
- Effect of mini-trampoline physical activity on executive functions in preschool children.Biomed Res Int. 2018; 20182712803
- Systematic review of physical activity and cognitive development in early childhood.J Sci Med Sport. 2016; 19: 573-578
- The relationship between physical activity and diet and young children’s cognitive development: a systematic review.Pre Med Rep. 2016; 3: 379-390
- Effects of physical activity on motor skills and cognitive development in early childhood: a systematic review.Biomed Res Int. 2017; 20172760716
- Effects of physical activity on children’s executive function: contributions of experimental research on aerobic exercise.Dev Rev. 2010; 30: 331-351
- Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement.Sys Rev. 2015; 4: 1-9
- Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions version 5.1.0.Naunyn Schmiedebergs Arch Exp Pathol Pharmakol. 2011; : S38
- High-intensity interval training for improving health-related fitness in adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Br J Sports Med. 2015; 49: 1253-1261
- Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences.2nd ed. Lawrence erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ1988
- Quantifying heterogeneity in a meta‐analysis.Stat Med. 2002; 21: 1539-1558
- Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test.BMJ. 1997; 315: 629-634
- Generalization of trim and fill for application in meta-regression.Res Synth Methods. 2012; 3: 51-67
Quan M, Xun P, Wang R et al. Walking pace and the risk of stroke: A meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. J Sport Health Sci. In press. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jshs.2019.09.005.
- Differential development of attention and executive functions in 3- to 12-year-old Finnish children.Dev Neuropsychol. 2001; 20: 407-428
- Cognitively engaging chronic physical activity, but not aerobic exercise, affects executive functions in primary school children: a group-randomized controlled trial.J Sport Exerc Psychol. 2015; 37: 575-591
- Cognitively challenging physical activity benefits executive function in overweight children.J Sports Sci. 2014; 32: 201-211
WHO. Global recommendations on physical activity for health. Available at: https://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publications/9789241599979/en/. Accessed 2 January 2020.
- A meta-analysis of the relationship between children’s physical activity and mental health.J Pediatr Psychol. 2011; 36: 385-397
- Physical activity, cognition, and brain outcomes: a review of the 2018 physical activity guidelines.Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2019; 51: 1242-1251
- Are preschool children active enough in Shanghai: an accelerometer-based cross-sectional study.BMJ Open. 2019; 9e024090
- Preschoolers’ technology-assessed physical activity and cognitive function: a cross-sectional study.J Clin Med. 2018; 7: 108
- Aerobic fitness is associated with hippocampal volume in elderly humans.Hippocampus. 2009; 19: 1030-1039
- Neuroplasticity promoted by task complexity.Exerc Sport Sci Rev. 2005; 33: 24-31
- Functional analysis of neurovascular adaptations to exercise in the dentate gyrus of young adult mice associated with cognitive gain.Hippocampus. 2009; 19: 937-950
- Effects of continuous and intermittent exercise on executive function in children aged 8-10 years.Psychophysiology. 2016; 53: 1335-1342
- Effect of age on exercise-induced alterations in cognitive executive function: relationship to cerebral perfusion.Exp Gerontol. 2012; 47: 541-551
- Exercise primes a molecular memory for brain-derived neurotrophic factor protein induction in the rat hippocampus.Neuroscience. 2005; 133: 853-861
- Insulin-like growth factor I interfaces with brain-derived neurotrophic factor-mediated synaptic plasticity to modulate aspects of exercise-induced cognitive function.Neuroscience. 2006; 140: 823-833
- Striatal dopamine turnover during treadmill running in the rat: Relation to the speed of running.Brain Res Bull. 1994; 35: 41-49
- The neuropsychopharmacology of fronto-executive function: Monoaminergic modulation.Ann Rev Neurosci. 2009; 32: 267-287
- Exercise builds brain health: key roles of growth factor cascades and inflammation.Trends Neurosci. 2007; 30: 464-472
Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 01, 2020
Accepted:
March 9,
2020
Received in revised form:
February 21,
2020
Received:
September 22,
2019
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 Sports Medicine Australia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
