Pesce Caterina, Masci Ilaria, Marchetti Rosalba, Vazou Spyridoula, Sääkslahti Arja, Tomporowski Phillip D
Department of Movement, Human and Health Sciences, Italian University Sport and Movement "Foro Italico" Rome, Italy.
Department of Kinesiology, Iowa State University Ames, IA, USA.
Front Psychol. 2016 Mar 11;7:349. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00349. eCollection 2016.
In light of the interrelation between motor and cognitive development and the predictive value of the former for the latter, the secular decline observed in motor coordination ability as early as preschool urges identification of interventions that may jointly impact motor and cognitive efficiency. The aim of this study was twofold. It (1) explored the outcomes of enriched physical education (PE), centered on deliberate play and cognitively challenging variability of practice, on motor coordination and cognitive processing; (2) examined whether motor coordination outcomes mediate intervention effects on children's cognition, while controlling for moderation by lifestyle factors as outdoor play habits and weight status. Four hundred and sixty children aged 5-10 years participated in a 6-month group randomized intervention in PE, with or without playful coordinative and cognitive enrichment. The weight status and spontaneous outdoor play habits of children (parental report of outdoor play) were evaluated at baseline. Before and after the intervention, motor developmental level (Movement Assessment Battery for Children) was evaluated in all children, who were then assessed either with a test of working memory (Random Number Generation task), or with a test of attention (from the Cognitive Assessment System). Children assigned to the 'enriched' intervention showed more pronounced improvements in all motor coordination assessments (manual dexterity, ball skills, static/dynamic balance). The beneficial effect on ball skills was amplified by the level of spontaneous outdoor play and weight status. Among indices of executive function and attention, only that of inhibition showed a differential effect of intervention type. Moderated mediation showed that the better outcome of the enriched PE on ball skills mediated the better inhibition outcome, but only when the enrichment intervention was paralleled by a medium-to-high level of outdoor play. Results suggest that specifically tailored physical activity (PA) games provide a unique form of enrichment that impacts children's cognitive development through motor coordination improvement, particularly object control skills, which are linked to children's PA habits later in life. Outdoor play appears to offer the natural ground for the stimulation by designed PA games to take root in children's mind.
鉴于运动与认知发展之间的相互关系以及前者对后者的预测价值，早在学龄前儿童中观察到的运动协调能力的长期下降促使人们确定可能共同影响运动和认知效率的干预措施。本研究的目的有两个。它（1）探讨了以刻意游戏和具有认知挑战性的练习变化为中心的强化体育教育（PE）对运动协调和认知加工的影响；（2）在控制生活方式因素（如户外玩耍习惯和体重状况）的调节作用的同时，检验运动协调结果是否介导了干预对儿童认知的影响。460名5至10岁的儿童参加了为期6个月的体育教育分组随机干预，分为有或没有趣味性协调和认知强化的两组。在基线时评估了儿童的体重状况和自发户外玩耍习惯（家长报告的户外玩耍情况）。在干预前后，对所有儿童进行了运动发育水平评估（儿童运动评估量表），然后对他们进行工作记忆测试（随机数字生成任务）或注意力测试（来自认知评估系统）。被分配到“强化”干预组的儿童在所有运动协调评估（手动灵活性、球类技能、静态/动态平衡）中表现出更明显的改善。对球类技能的有益影响因自发户外玩耍水平和体重状况而增强。在执行功能和注意力指标中，只有抑制指标显示出干预类型的差异效应。调节中介分析表明，强化体育教育在球类技能方面的更好结果介导了更好的抑制结果，但只有当强化干预与中高水平的户外玩耍同时进行时才成立。结果表明，专门定制的体育活动（PA）游戏提供了一种独特的强化形式，通过改善运动协调，特别是物体控制技能，影响儿童的认知发展，而物体控制技能与儿童后期的PA习惯有关。户外玩耍似乎为精心设计的PA游戏的刺激在儿童心中扎根提供了天然土壤。
