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Physical Activity and Cognitive Performance in Early Childhood: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized
Javier S Morales1,2, Eva Alberquilla Del Río3, Pedro L Valenzuela4,5
1MOVE-IT Research Group, Department of Physical Education, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain.
Insights
Physical activity interventions significantly enhance cognitive functions like attention, working memory, and vocabulary in young children. These findings support integrating physical activity programs early in childhood development.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Pediatric Health
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Emerging research indicates physical activity (PA) benefits youth cognitive performance.
- However, the impact of PA on cognitive development in early childhood remains under-investigated.
Conclusions:
- Physical activity interventions show promise for improving key cognitive domains in early childhood.
- The findings suggest that implementing PA programs from an early age could support cognitive development.
Background:
Growing evidence suggests that physical activity (PA) could improve cognitive performance in youths, but whether these effects occur from early childhood remains unclear.
Objective:
To summarize evidence on the effects of PA interventions on cognitive performance in early childhood.
Methods:
We performed a systematic search in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and PsycINFO (from inception to 6 September 2023) for randomized controlled trials assessing the effects of PA interventions (≥ 3 weeks) on cognitive-related outcomes in early childhood (3-6 years). We conducted a random-effects meta-analysis when five or more studies assessed a given outcome. The potential moderating role of participant (e.g., age) and intervention characteristics (e.g., duration, volume, intensity, cognitive engagement) was also assessed.
Results:
We found a total of 24 studies (N = 3483 children) that were deemed to be of overall fair methodological quality. PA interventions were supervised and lasted between 3 and 24 weeks. The most common session duration was 30 min, with a frequency of two sessions per week. Pooled analyses revealed that PA interventions have positive effects on all analysed outcomes, including attention (standardized mean difference (SMD) = 0.49, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.18-0.79, p = 0.002), inhibition (SMD = 0.45, 95% CI 0.06-0.84, p = 0.022), working memory (SMD = 0.50, 95% CI 0.18-0.82, p = 0.002), cognitive flexibility (SMD = 0.39, 0.15-0.62, p = 0.002) and vocabulary (SMD = 1.18, 0.19-2.16, p = 0.019). Sensitivity analyses confirmed the benefits in all cases except for inhibition (p = 0.062). No consistent differences were found relating to any moderator variable.
Conclusions:
Although further research is warranted, our findings suggest that PA interventions may improve cognitive performance in early childhood, particularly in the domains of attention, inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility and vocabulary. These findings might support the implementation of PA interventions from early childhood.
Prospero Registration:
CRD42021249319.
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