Children Involved in Team Sports Show Superior Executive Function Compared to Their Peers Involved in Self-Paced Sports

Abstract

Children's motor and cognitive functions develop rapidly during childhood. Physical activity and executive function are intricately linked during this important developmental period, with physical activity interventions consistently proving to benefit children's executive function. However, it is less clear which type of physical activity shows the strongest associations with executive function in children. Therefore, this study compared executive function performance of children aged 8 to 12 that either participated in team sports or self-paced sports or were not involved in any kind of organized sports (non-athletes). Results demonstrate that children participating in team sports show superior executive function compared to children participating in self-paced sports and non-athletes. Importantly, children participating in self-paced sports do not outperform non-athletes when it comes to executive function. This study is the first to show that even at a very young age, team sports athletes outperform athletes from self-paced sports as well as non-athletes on a multifaceted and comprehensive test battery for executive function. Furthermore, our findings support the hypothesis that cognitively engaging physical activity, such as participation in team sports, might show stronger associations with executive functioning compared to other types of sports and physical activity.

Keywords: athletes; children; development; executive function.

Figure A1

Graphical representation of the model by Laureys et al. (in press). SS = Spatial Span, ML = Monkey Ladder, TS = Token Search, OO = Odd One Out, DT = Double Trouble, SART = Sustained Attention to Response, SP = Spatial Planning.

Figure 1

Predicted values (i.e., predicted scores when the influence of the age covariate is taken away) and standard error for executive function within each group. Black squares represent predicted group means, with the bars representing their respective standard errors and the dots representing individual predicted scores. Means with different superscripts are significantly different at the p < 0.05 level.