A meta-analysis of physical activity interventions targeting executive functions in children: focus on cognitive and/or metabolic demands?

A meta-analysis of physical activity interventions targeting executive functions in children: focus on cognitive and/or metabolic demands?

Authors
Cabral, M. Pournara, I. Pontifex, M. B. Venetsanou, F. Pesce, C. Vazou, S.
Year
2025
Journal
International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology
Volume
Pages
23
This meta-analysis of evidence from acute and chronic research aims to evaluate the extent to which differences in the cognitive demands of physical activity interventions, per se or jointly with their metabolic demands, may explain differences in the observed effects on children's core executive functions. In total, 41 studies involving 7316 participants were meta-analysed to evaluate the effects of cognitively engaging physical activity with respect to different comparator types (non-physically active control, aerobic exercise, or physical education), also considering differences in effect size computation (i.e., pre-post and post-test only). Larger effects, though within the small-size range, emerged in favour of cognitively challenging physical activity from the analysis of pre-post change scores. This favourable effect emerged for acute physical activity, compared to resting, on working memory accuracy only; instead for chronic physical activity, it emerged across core executive function outcomes. Thus, there are small effects that have a different level of domain generality/specificity in chronic and acute physical activity studies. These results call for more research that uses appropriate comparator groups and analyses pre-post change scores along with group differences at post-test to unequivocally state the causal role of cognitive challenge in physical activity to affect children's executive functions. The results also allow to advocate, even though cautiously because of the small effect sizes, implementing aerobic activities with high levels of cognitive engagement in physical education classes for their chronic effects and cognitively challenging active breaks along the school day for their acute effects.

Oversett med Google Translate
-
Type of intervention

Preventive- and Promotive Health Interventions

Topic

Development and Life Coping Skills

Cognition

Intervention

The organization of interventions

Group Interventions

School/Preschoolbased Interventions

Public Health Interventions

Physical Activity

Age group

Preschool Aged Children (3-5 years)

School Aged Children (6-12 years)

More information
Looking for more information on this topic? Click on the links below to search PsykTestBarn and Håndboka