Cognitive-motor multitasking in athletes with and without intellectual impairment

Area of Science:

• Cognitive neuroscience
• Sports science
• Disability studies

Background:

• Cognitive-motor multitasking is crucial for athletic performance.
• Understanding multitasking challenges in athletes with intellectual impairment (II) is vital.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate cognitive-motor multitasking abilities in elite athletes with II compared to control (CT) athletes.
• To analyze how dual-tasking affects cognitive recognition and postural control in both groups.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed separate and concurrent cognitive (visual object recognition) and motor (postural balance on a rocking board) tasks.
• Measures included recognition accuracy, center-of-pressure (COP) path length, and COP trajectory sample entropy for automaticity.

Main Results:

• Control athletes outperformed II-athletes in the cognitive task.
• Both groups maintained comparable postural control during single and dual tasks.
• II-athletes prioritized balance, leading to significant memory performance costs, unlike CT-athletes.

Conclusions:

• Athletes with II exhibit heightened sensitivity to multitasking interference.
• This sensitivity is not mitigated by athletic competence or skill transfer.
• Adaptive capacity for multitasking differs significantly between II and CT athletes.