Abstract
Childhood is an important and sensitive period for cognitive development. There is limited published research regarding the relationship between sports and cognitive functions in children. We present studies that demonstrate the influence of physical activity on health, especially a positive correlation between sports and cognitive functions. The keywords “children, cognition, cognitive function, physical activity, and brain” were searched for using PsycInfo, Medline, and Google Scholar, with publication dates ranging from January 2000 to November 2017. Of the 617 results, 58 articles strictly connected to the main topics of physical activity and cognitive functioning were then reviewed. The areas of attention, thinking, language, learning, and memory were analyzed relative to sports and childhood. Results suggest that engaging in sports in late childhood positively influences cognitive and emotional functions. There is a paucity of publications that investigate the impact of sports on pre-adolescents’ cognitive functions, or explore which cognitive functions are developed by which sporting disciplines. Such knowledge would be useful in developing training programs for pre-adolescents, aimed at improving cognitive functions that may guide both researchers and practitioners relative to the wide range of benefits that result from physical activity.
Highlights
In recent years, there has been a shift in the lifestyles of various age-groups, including children, especially in their late childhood
Keywords applied in the search were: children, cognition, cognitive function, physical activity, and brain
Taking the aforementioned results into consideration, most studies in this review indicate that physical activity is important for their physical resources of children in late childhood, for their mental resources, and for their social resources
Summary
There has been a shift in the lifestyles of various age-groups, including children, especially in their late childhood. Unlike children a few decades ago, children today are leading increasingly sedentary lifestyles that involve time spent on computers and watching TV. This lifestyle leads them to neglect the physical activity that has been typical to this developmental period [1,2]. In times when children are less active, the significance of studies on the positive impact of sport on physical health, mental health, and cognitive functioning, is critical [3,4,5,6,7]. Research suggests that overweight adolescents who do not practice sports are more prone to risk behaviors, including suicide attempts and addiction to both alcohol and illicit drugs [13,14]
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