Mosher Alexandra, Fraser-Thomas Jessica, Baker Joseph
School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Front Sports Act Living. 2020 Oct 27;2:596229. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2020.596229. eCollection 2020.
While practitioners and organizations advise against early specialization, the lack of a consistent and clear definition of early specialization reduces the impact of recommendations and policies in youth sport. An important first step in understanding the consequences of early specialization is establishing what early specialization is. This PRISMA-guided systematic review aimed to determine the types, characteristics, and general content of early specialization papers within the literature, and examine how early specialization has been defined and measured in order to advance knowledge toward a clear and consistent definition of early specialization. Four different electronic databases were searched (SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, Sports Medicine and Education Index, and Scopus). Both non data-driven and data-driven studies were included to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the literature. In order to be included in the review, the paper must: (a) Focus on specialization and explicitly use the term "specialization" (b) Focus on sport and athletes (c) Be papers from a peer-reviewed (d) Be in English. And finally, (e) be available in full text. One thousand three hundred and seventy one articles were screened resulting in 129 articles included in the review after applying inclusion/exclusion criteria. Results indicated a clear discrepancy between key components of early specialization and the approaches used to classify early specializers. Future research should work toward developing a valid and reliable approach to classifying early specializers and establishing a consistent definition across studies.
尽管从业者和组织都不建议过早专业化，但由于缺乏对过早专业化的一致且清晰的定义，削弱了青少年体育相关建议和政策的影响力。理解过早专业化后果的重要第一步是明确什么是过早专业化。这项由PRISMA指导的系统综述旨在确定文献中过早专业化论文的类型、特征和一般内容，并研究过早专业化是如何被定义和衡量的，以便推动对过早专业化形成清晰一致的定义。我们检索了四个不同的电子数据库（体育文献数据库、科学网、运动医学与教育索引和Scopus）。纳入了非数据驱动和数据驱动的研究，以确保全面了解文献。为了纳入综述，论文必须：（a）关注专业化并明确使用“专业化”一词；（b）关注体育和运动员；（c）是同行评审的论文；（d）为英文；最后，（e）有全文。共筛选了1371篇文章，应用纳入/排除标准后，有129篇文章被纳入综述。结果表明，过早专业化的关键要素与用于对过早专业化者进行分类的方法之间存在明显差异。未来的研究应致力于开发一种有效且可靠的方法来对过早专业化者进行分类，并在各项研究中建立一致的定义。
