| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The debate about a possible relationship between aerobic fitness and motor skills with cognitive development in children has recently re-emerged, because of the decrease in children's aerobic fitness and the concomitant pressure of schools to enhance cognitive performance. As the literature in young children is scarce, we examined the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationship of aerobic fitness and motor skills with spatial working memory and attention in preschool children.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data from 245 ethnically diverse preschool children (mean age: 5.2 (0.6) years, girls: 49.4%) analyzed at baseline and 9 months later. Assessments included aerobic fitness (20 m shuttle run) and motor skills with agility (obstacle course) and dynamic balance (balance beam). Cognitive parameters included spatial working memory (IDS) and attention (KHV-VK). All analyses were adjusted for age, sex, BMI, migration status, parental education, native language and linguistic region. Longitudinal analyses were additionally adjusted for the respective baseline value.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In the cross-sectional analysis, aerobic fitness was associated with better attention (<it>r </it>= 0.16, <it>p </it>= 0.03). A shorter time in the agility test was independently associated with a better performance both in working memory (<it>r </it>= -0.17, <it>p </it>= 0.01) and in attention (<it>r </it>= -0.20, <it>p </it>= 0.01). In the longitudinal analyses, baseline aerobic fitness was independently related to improvements in attention (<it>r </it>= 0.16, <it>p </it>= 0.03), while baseline dynamic balance was associated with improvements in working memory (<it>r </it>= 0.15, <it>p </it>= 0.04).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In young children, higher baseline aerobic fitness and motor skills were related to a better spatial working memory and/or attention at baseline, and to some extent also to their future improvements over the following 9 months.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>clinicaltrials.gov <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00674544">NCT00674544</a></p>
|
|---|