Effects of attending an “Active school” on children’s cognitive-motor dual tasking: Evidence from a small-scale evaluation study

Möhring (Wenke)¹, Klupp (Stephanie)², Schneider (Sina)², Ludyga (Sebastian)², Grob (Alexander)^2
1University of Basel
²Universität Basel

 

Submission type

Poster only

Scheduled

Hallway, 22-07-2016, 16:00 - 17:00

Keywords

active school, dual tasking, cognitive development, motor development

Summary

 

The Swiss school-based physical activity program “Active school” aims at enhancing children’s learning across multiple sensory channels. This goal is implemented by asking children to perform dual tasks in school lessons (e.g., balancing while computing calculations). The present study investigated whether children of an “Active school” showed a more flexible cognitive-motor dual tasking than children of common schools. Twenty-six children from “Active school” (M = 10.60 years, 10 females) were matched by age and sex with 26 children from common schools (M = 10.62 years). Cognitive-motor dual tasking was assessed by asking children to walk while performing several cognitive tasks. Children’s walking was assessed using an electronic walkway system that measured gait parameters (e.g., gait variability). In the cognitive tasks, children’s response times were measured. Dual-task performance was compared to single-task performance by computing proportional dual-task costs (DTCs). Findings indicated that children from “Active school” showed lower motor DTCs (M = 22.05%) as compared to children from common schools (M = 35.44%, p < .05) whereas children did not differ in their cognitive DTCs. Our results suggested that participating in “Active school” may indeed improve children’s ability to cope with two simultaneously presented tasks, at least for cognitive-motor dual tasks.

 

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