Physical Activity May Strengthen Children's Ability To Pay Attention

[Mousehound]

ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2009) — As school districts across the nation revamped curricula to meet requirements of the federal “No Child Left Behind” Act, opportunities for children to be physically active during the school day diminished significantly. Future mandates, however, might be better served by taking into account findings from a University of Illinois study suggesting the academic benefits of physical education classes, recess periods and after-school exercise programs. The research, led by Charles Hillman, a professor of kinesiology and community health and the director of the Neurocognitive Kinesiology Laboratory at Illinois, suggests that physical activity may increase students’ cognitive control – or ability to pay attention – and also result in better performance on academic achievement tests. “The goal of the study was to see if a single acute bout of moderate exercise – walking – was beneficial for cognitive function in a period of time afterward,” Hillman said. “This question has been asked before by our lab and others, in young adults and older adults, but it’s never been asked in children. That’s why it’s an important question.” For each of three testing criteria, researchers noted a positive outcome linking physical activity, attention and academic achievement. “What we found is that following the acute bout of walking, children performed better on the flanker task,” Hillman said. “They had a higher rate of accuracy, especially when the task was more difficult. Along with that behavioral effect, we also found that there were changes in their event-related brain potentials (ERPs) – in these neuroelectric signals that are a covert measure of attentional resource allocation.” One aspect of the neuroelectric activity of particular interest to researchers is a measure referred to as the P3 potential. Hillman said the amplitude of the potential relates to the allocation of attentional resources. “What we found in this particular study is, following acute bouts of walking, children had a larger P3 amplitude, suggesting that they are better able to allocate attentional resources, and this effect is greater in the more difficult conditions of the flanker test, suggesting that when the environment is more noisy – visual noise in this case – kids are better able to gate out that noise and selectively attend to the correct stimulus and act upon it.” In an effort to see how performance on such tests relates to actual classroom learning, researchers next administered an academic achievement test. The test measured performance in three areas: reading, spelling and math. Again, the researchers noted better test results following exercise. “And when we assessed it, the effect was largest in reading comprehension,” Hillman said. In fact, he said, “If you go by the guidelines set forth by the Wide Range Achievement Test, the increase in reading comprehension following exercise equated to approximately a full grade level.

Full article here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0331183800.htm

[ukmum]

What a surprise (not) any parent could tell you this pearl of wisdom..

[Mama Alanna]

Yep. Add in classes that try to teach all children the same (because the slower kids would have their self esteem hurt if they're taught different lessons than the smart kids), and you get bored, fidgety kids who aren't going to pay attention. Instead of classes geared to them and recess where they can run around and play games, they get dosed with ADD drugs.