Your Therapy Source Magazine for Pediatric Therapists May 2016 | Page 11

Delayed Effects of Coordination
Exercises on Attention Span in Children
Perceptual and Motor Skills published research on the
effects of an acute bout of coordinative exercise in
physical education on the attention of 90 primary
school children. The experimental group consisted
of 48 children who received a cognitively demanding
physical education 45 minute lesson consisting of
different coordination exercises. The control group
consisted of 42 children who attended a normal
sedentary school lesson learning language skills.
The coordination tasks were cognitively demanding
physical activities that required specific higher-order
cognitive processes, such as executive functions. The
experimental group started the lesson with 7 minutes
of running to music where specific actions had to be
performed based on certain words that were said in the
song (ie touch the ground when a certain word was
sung). The group then started exercises in 6 different
stations with various levels of difficulty. Some examples of the stations were: balance on a
bench while bouncing a basketball in one hand and a volleyball, catch a ball with a certain
hand based on the color of the ball, obstacle course and pass a ball to a partner a certain way
based on the color of the ball.
Each participant was evaluated before, immediately after and 90 minutes after each
experimental condition with the d2 Test of Attention. The results indicated the following:
1. children’s attentional performance increased in the experimental group that participated in
the phys X