Capacity Of Children Research Articles

The protective role of children's agency: towards critical understanding of agency amongst children living in the context of armed conflict and political violence

BackgroundIn the mainstream literature, children exposed to political violence and armed conflicts are conventionally viewed as a vulnerable group, but we believe their coping abilities, survival skills, and agency are overlooked and underestimated. In this study, we challenged this traditional view by conceptualising agency as children's capacity to act and contribute to their own security, wellbeing, and development, and assessed its contribution in helping them adapt to and cope with challenging and traumatic living conditions. MethodsWe used a socioecological approach to observe and assess qualitatively children's agency. Participants were recruited by local associations in rural areas, urban areas, and refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. They were chosen by directors and counsellors of education centres through purposive convenience sampling. The inclusion criterion was no diagnosis of physical or psychological disease. All participants and families provided verbal consent before the activities. Each child was asked to draw and describe a map representing all significant places—safe and unsafe—within their neighbourhoods. A subgroup of children was asked to guide the research team within their neighbourhoods using a walkalong technique. All children's narratives were audiotaped, transcribed, and translated by two local bilingual researchers (EG and AJ). Thematic content analysis was applied to written and drawn materials using Atlas.Ti version 8. FindingsData were collected between April and November, 2018. 75 children aged 7–13 years (mean 10·27 [SD 1·38] years, 68% girls, 32% boys, 23% residing in the Gaza Strip and 58% in the West Bank) drew maps. 30 children (17 girls and 13 boys) guided research team members around neighbourhoods. Thematic content analysis revealed six main domains representing children's everyday strategies and practices of agency: 1) actively employing social resource; 2) challenging movement restrictions; 3) receiving an education; 4) personal strategies; 5) reclaiming play spaces; and 6) meaning-making processes and political engagement (appendix). Agency emerged as strictly intersected by experience, societal expectations, gender, geography, and social maturity. InterpretationThe domains revealed in this study illustrate the crucial interconnection between children's practices of agency and the multiple ecologies of their everyday life implied in promoting (or suppressing) their ability to mobilise resources to improve their own wellbeing. Children's agency has emerged as a multidimensional construct within the different socioecological levels and thus showing the importance of considering individual family, community, and societal levels when examining life in the context of war. Our findings challenge the picture of Palestinian children as helpless victims, and instead show them to be active agents who mobilise resources within themselves and their social, physical, and political experiences, despite living with violence. The children we assessed were highly competent and active agents who drew on personal, social, and external resources to enhance their wellbeing and life satisfaction and to cope with adversity. Our findings illustrate the importance of agency for children's wellbeing within challenging and traumatic living conditions and how structures, contexts, and relationships can expand or constrain the child's choices and hence, their agency. FundingNone.

Relations between oral language skills and English reading achievement among Spanish-English bilingual children: a quantile regression analysis.

Understanding factors that influence reading achievement among bilingual children is considerably more complex than it is for monolingual children. Research on dual language development indicates that bilingual children’s oral language abilities are often distributed across languages in varied ways, due to heterogeneity of dual language exposure and input. Consequently, there may be greater variability in the associations between oral language proficiency and reading achievement among bilingual children than there is for monolingual children. This study evaluated how vocabulary knowledge and morphosyntactic ability in Spanish and English were associated with English reading achievement among 117 bilingual kindergarten and first grade children in the USA using both OLS and quantile regression. Results indicated that although English vocabulary and morphosyntax were both significantly associated with reading achievement, English vocabulary knowledge was most strongly associated with reading at higher quantiles of reading achievement. Cross-language analyses indicated that both Spanish vocabulary and morphosyntax made significant contributions to predicting English reading achievement beyond the effects of English oral language. Spanish vocabulary was uniquely predictive of reading at high and low quantiles of English reading, whereas relations between Spanish morphosyntax and English reading did not differ across quantiles. These results were consistent with predictions derived from theoretical models such as the simple view of reading and suggest that Spanish vocabulary knowledge may provide more unique information about children’s underlying capacity for acquiring language and literacy skill than does morphosyntax.

Impact of Refractive Errors on the Academic Performance of High School Children of Lahore.

IntroductionThe process of learning begins in childhood and accurate vision can greatly affects a child's learning capacity. It is documented that visual impairment in children can have a significant impact on their performance at school as well as their social interaction and development.ObjectiveThis research aimed to study the impact of refractive corrections on the academic performance of high school children in Lahore.MethodologyA total of 2,000 students with equal distribution of gender, public, private school, and locality were included in the study. All students were screened for defective vision. The academic performance before and after corrections was recorded on the prescribed proforma.ResultsThe prevalence of refractive error was high among the public high schools 244 (59.2%) as compared to the private schools 168 (40.8%). The area-based prevalence was higher among the students in urban settings 255 (62%) while in rural it was 157 (38%). It was found that in the public sector, the average score of academic results before the intervention was 56.39 ± 13.24 which was increased to 60.27 ± 14.94 after the intervention while in the private sector, before the intervention, the average score was 63.53 ± 17.50 which was improved to 67.12 ± 18.48. It was found to be statistically significant at p-value < 0.05.ConclusionA significant impact was observed in the average academic scores of the results after refractive corrections.

Effects of Enzyme Replacement Therapy on Quality of Life, Functional Independence and Aerobic Capacity in Children with Mucopolysaccharidosis

: The mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) can lead to poor endurance and mobility, often associated with pain, restricted range of motion (ROM), low energy levels and fatigue, negatively affecting quality of life and activities of daily living. This study aimed to examine the impact of enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) on aerobic capacity, functional independence and quality of life in children with MPS and to determine the anxiety and depression levels of their caregivers. Study Design established in Cross sectional study. Twelve children aged 3 to 11 years were included in the study. The subjects were divided into two groups according to the use of ERT. Quality of life and functional independence were assessed using the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) and Functional Independence Measure for Children (WeeFIM). The 6-minute walk test (6MWT) and timed up and go test (TUG) were used to evaluate aerobic capacity. Anxiety and depression levels of parents were assessed using the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), respectively. A total of 12 MPS patients 7 boys (58.3%) and 5 girls (41.7%) with a mean age of 5.58±2.67 years were included in the study.1 patient had MPS type I, 2 patients had MPS type III, 5 patients had MPS type IV, and 4 patients had MPS type VI. Six patients were receiving ERT. The children had a mean 6MWT score of 330.83±114.29, a mean TUG score of 14.24±5.71 sec, a mean PedsQL score of 46.83±14.03 and a mean WeeFIM score of 70.83±26.85. Their caregivers had a mean BAI score of 19.25±10.95 and a mean BDI score of 19.41±6.81. A significant difference was found between the children receiving ERT and those not receiving in the WeeFIM scores (P0.05). ERT did not change aerobic capacity and quality of children with MPS but increased their level of functional independence. Multisystem involvement in MPS children may affect anxiety and depression levels of their caregivers but ERT does not seem to have any effect on this psychosocial aspect.

Mental distress during the COVID-19 pandemic among mothers of young children and the related factors: A focus on their difficulties in raising their child, concerns about their child's development, social support, and capacity to receive support

Objectives We examined the relationships between the development of severe mental distress among mothers of young children during COVID-19 and the related factors including difficulties in raising child, concerns about child's development, social support, and capacity to receive support using comparable pre-COVID-19 baseline data. Severe mental distress was defined by a score of K6≧10 on the Psychological Distress Scale.Methods We conducted a baseline survey in February 2020 and obtained responses from 4,700 mothers of young children. A follow-up survey was conducted in June 2020. We obtained responses from 2,489 participants of the original group. The K6 scores (four groups) of two surveys were compared. Thereafter, 521 participants who had severe mental distress at the baseline were excluded, and 1,968 participants were included in the Poisson regression analysis. We adjusted for maternal age, education, marital and employment status, household income, children's age, number of children, and changes during COVID-19 pandemic. The adjusted incident rate ratios (IRRs) were estimated using K6≧10 at follow-up as the dependent variable, and the independent variables were having difficulty in raising a child, concerns about child's development, social support, and capacity to receive support.Results At the baseline, 20.9% of mothers had severe mental distress. At follow-up, this value increased significantly to 25.3%. Mothers who developed severe mental distress by the time of the follow-up survey were 333 (16.9%), and they were more likely to have had difficulty in raising their child, concerns about child's development, lower levels of positive attitudes toward receiving support (capacity to receive support), and lower levels of social support.Conclusions The mental health of mothers caring for young children worsened during the COVID-19 outbreak. Factors related to the development of severe mental distress included having difficulty in raising a child, concerns about child's development, and lower levels of positive attitudes toward receiving support (capacity to receive support) and lower levels of social support. Providing parenting support, consultation and rehabilitation, and exploring approaches to enhance capacity for receiving support are required.

INVESTIGATION OF PHYSICAL FITNESS AND GROSS MOTOR CAPACITY IN CHILDREN WITH NEUROFIBROMATOSIS TYPE 1

Purpose: To assess physical fitness, gross motor capacity, and their relationship in children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). &#x0D; Materials and Methods: Children with NF1 (n=40, age 6-17, mean 9.70±3.8 years) and typically developing children (TDC) (n= 28, age 5,5-17,5, mean 11.35±3.0 years) were evaluated by the six-minute walking test, sit-up test, sit-and-reach test, flamingo balance test and body mass index. Gross motor capacity was assessed with the Gross Motor Function Measure D and E subdimensions. &#x0D; Results: Physical fitness and gross motor capacity differed significantly between NF1 and TDC (p

Parental play supportiveness and kindergartners’ peer problems: Children's playfulness as a potential mediator

AbstractThis study examined the mediating role of children's playfulness in the relationship between parental play supportiveness and children's prospective peer problems in a sample of Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children. Participants were parents and teachers of 108 local children (56% boys, mean age = 60.0 months). At time 1, parents reported their supportiveness towards household play and their child's playfulness through a questionnaire. Six months later at time 2, teachers reported children's peer problems as exhibited in the kindergarten. A path analytic model revealed that, controlling for child age, gender, and birth order, parental play supportiveness and children's playfulness at time 1 were positively associated, and that playfulness at time 1 negatively predicted peer problems at time 2. The indirect relationship between parental play supportiveness and peer problems as mediated through playfulness was significant, whereas the direct relationship between parental play supportiveness and peer problems was non‐significant. These findings suggest that parents who support children's household play may promote children's capacity to establish positive peer relationships by improving their level of playfulness. Practically, the results highlight the utility of fostering parental play supportiveness and children's playfulness to support kindergarten children's social development.

Short-Term Therapeutic Effects of Anti-Gravity Treadmill Training on Brain Functional Activities and Walking Capacity in Children With Cerebral Palsy

Introduction: Cerebral Palsy (CP) is one of the most common causes of motor disability in childhood. Since CP is a corollary to brain damage, persistent treatment should accompany an alteration in brain functional activity in line with clinical improvements. Methods: Fourteen children with spastic hemiplegia CP were randomly divided into 2 groups. The study group (8yrs-5mos) underwent 45min AlterG training sessions 3 times/week for 8 weeks, while the control group (8yrs-2mos) received the same amount of occupational therapy (OT). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was conducted to quantify brain activation during the performance of passive tasks including ankle plantarflexion to dorsiflexion and knee flexion to extension over the range of motion. Walking capacity was assessed using the Timed-Up-and-Go, 10-meter, and 6-minute walk tests. All evaluations were performed before and after training and compared between the two groups. Results: We were able to detect the signatures of ankle and knee passive movement tasks in the fMRI and characterize them in terms of activated voxels. The pre-post activation changes following the completion of training course showed that the elicited motor cortex activation was greater for the ankle than the knee tasks. For the ankle, primary motor cortex, precentral gyrus and corpus callosum showed significant enhancement in most study participants. The results indicated 16.1% more active voxels in the study than control groups. Similarly, clinical outcome measures improved over twice as much in this group. Conclusions: AlterG training could be a potentially effective therapeutic intervention for improving gait and balance impairments in children with CP.

Proactive interference and the development of working memory.

Working memory (WM), the ability to maintain information in service to a task, is characterized by its limited capacity. Several influential models attribute this limitation in a large extent to proactive interference (PI), the phenomenon that previously encoded, now-irrelevant information competes with relevant information. Here, we look back at the adult PI literature, spanning over 60 years, as well as recent results linking the ability to cope with PI to WM capacity. In early development, WM capacity is even more limited, yet an accounting for the role of PI has been lacking. Our Focus Article aims to address this through an integrative account: since PI resolution is mediated by networks involving the frontal cortex (particularly, the left inferior frontal gyrus) and the posterior parietal cortex, and since children have protracted development and less recruitment of these areas, the increase in the ability to cope with PI is a major factor underlying the increase in WM capacity in early development. Given this, we suggest that future research should focus on mechanistic studies of PI resolution in children. Finally, we note a crucial methodological implication: typical WM paradigms repeat stimuli from trial-to-trial, facilitating, inadvertently, PI and reducing performance; we may be fundamentally underestimating children's WM capacity. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory Neuroscience > Cognition Neuroscience > Development.

Kindhearted: Ethical guilt and ethical heart rate reactivity codevelop with aggression across childhood

Largely cross-sectional evidence indicates that ethical guilt is a robust predictor of childhood aggression. However, the underlying mechanisms of ethical guilt—in part assessed as ethical heart rate (HR) reactivity in the present study—are less clear, and longitudinal associations between ethical guilt, its underlying mechanisms, and aggression have not been explored. The present study used a multicohort longitudinal design to assess these constructs across early and middle childhood. At the beginning of the study and 2 years later, cohorts of 4- and 8-year-olds (ns = 150; N = 300) reported their guilt in response to an ethical transgression (i.e., pushing) and a nonethical transgression (i.e., breaking a classroom rule), and their HR was measured while they imagined committing these acts. Caregivers reported their child's aggression at each time point via questionnaire. Latent difference score models indicated that, regardless of cohort, children who increased in their ability to prioritize ethical guilt over 2 years were more likely to decrease in aggression over the same period. Moreover, children whose HR reactivity became more sensitive to ethical transgressions over time showed corresponding declines in aggression over time. Overall, these findings highlight the potential protective roles of children's capacities to react affectively and autonomically to the gravity of ethical transgressions across early and middle childhood.

The mediating role of parental embodied mentalizing in the longitudinal association between prenatal spousal support and toddler emotion recognition.

Emotion recognition is an important developmental achievement in early childhood. Grounded in theoretical concepts of family systems theory and the spillover effect, the goal of the current study was to examine whether prenatal spousal support predicts toddler emotion recognition at 24months, and whether this association is mediated by parental embodied mentalizing (PEM) at 6months. PEM refers to the parent's capacity to understand the infant's mental states from his or her whole-body kinesthetic expressions and adjust their own kinesthetic patterns accordingly. One hundred and five families expecting their first child were included in the study. Results indicated that maternal PEM mediated the relationship between prenatal dyadic positive and overall support and toddler emotion recognition. Paternal PEM was not found to be related to either dyadic support or to toddler emotion recognition, and it did not mediate the relationship between the two. The findings of the current study support the importance of including both parents' embodied mentalizing and a systemic approach to illuminate child development. A significant clinical implication from this study is the usefulness of prenatal couple interventions to improve mutual support and communication as it can promote parents' parental mentalizing and ultimately the child's emotion recognition capacity.

Teachers' Consistency of Emotional Support Moderates the Association Between Young Children's Regulation Capacities and Their Preschool Adjustment.

Preschool teachers' consistency of warm, sensitive, and responsive interactions with children may be more important than average levels and may moderate the association between children's cognitive and emotion regulation and their preschool adjustment. A sample of 312 boys and girls aged 32 to 68 months in 44 classrooms at 16 privately-funded centers and Head Starts completed assessments of emotional and cognitive regulation and were rated by their teachers using measures of social-emotional functioning. Teacher-child interactions were rated for emotional support. Multilevel structural equation modeling was used to simultaneously explore three aspects of preschool adjustment. Children who were the least regulated were more adjusted to preschool in classrooms where teachers were more consistent in their emotional support, over and above mean emotional support and after controlling for child- and preschool-level covariates. Consistency matters for children's preschool adjustment perhaps even more so than average levels of emotional support.

Interactions between child temperament and family environment in relation to school readiness: Diathesis-stress, differential susceptibility, or vantage sensitivity?

Children entering school with lower school readiness are at greater risk of facing adjustment problems in subsequent years. Recently, temperament has emerged as a predictor of school readiness, but whether the readiness of children with different temperament traits are differentially affected by the quality of their family environment remains unknown. This study pertained to the moderating role of children's temperament (negative affectivity, surgency/extraversion, effortful control) in the relationship between family environment (parenting and sociodemographic risk) and two school readiness dimensions (cognitive and socioemotional). We also tested how such interactions corresponded to three theoretical models of person-environment interactions: diathesis-stress, differential susceptibility, and vantage sensitivity. The sample included 98 children (59% boys) at risk due to their poor school readiness at 4.5 years old. Temperament was reported by parents, whereas family characteristics were extracted from a combination of parent reports and observations during a home visit before kindergarten when the children were 4.5 years old. School readiness was both assessed directly with the children and reported by parents at the end of kindergarten (M = 72.5 months; SD = 3.4). Hierarchical multiple linear regressions showed that negative affectivity and surgency/extraversion did not interact with family characteristics to predict children's school readiness. Therefore, enhancing the quality of family environments is likely to improve the school readiness of all at-risk children, regardless of their reactivity. Nonetheless, significant interactions were observed between family characteristics, and effortful control. Support was found for the diathesis-stress model but was insufficient to confirm either differential susceptibility or vantage sensitivity. Because at-risk children appear differentially affected by their family environment as a function of their effortful control level, adjusting preventive interventions to children's regulation capacities may be a useful way to enhance their effectiveness, and children's school readiness.

Analysis of Employee’s Working Capacity in Children’s City Outpatient’s Clinic №133 of Moscow City Health Department after COVID-19

The issues of long-lasting violations of physical and mental health among employees of Children’s City Outpatient’s Clinic №133 of Moscow City Health Department after COVID-19, as well as they effect on work quality and efficacy, and in some cases loss of any interest to work got us thinking about the features of post-COVID-19 syndrome and and forced us to analyze the prevalence and duration of various symptoms in employees. The protocol for this observational study was approved by the Moscow City Independent Ethics Committee. Developed questionnaires with questions both on the course of COVID-19 and on the postcovid period have fully revealed the picture of psychological, cognitive and asthenovegetative disorders in employees. Healthcare professionals of our clinic were interested in studying this issue as many symptoms of the disease have significantly affected the working capacity of several people. The study involved 68 volunteers. Interesting data and correlations were obtained and they have confirmed the fact of cognitive and memory decline in some employees of Children’s City Outpatient’s Clinic №133 who underwent COVID-19 and the effect of these disorders on working capacity. Study results have shown that 47.5% of doctors and 50% of nurses feel disability of varying degrees after COVID-19. The major task of the head of the facility in such situation is to implement long, comprehensive and effective rehabilitation for employees in order to maintain the capacity of medical workers.

Association of recurrent upper respiratory tract infections with low production of oxygen intermediates in children

ObjectivesUpper respiratory tract infections in children generally have significant morbidity and mortality. There is little data available about functional immaturity of the immune system and the child's susceptibility to infections at the beginning of their lives, thus, justifying a more specific immunological analysis. MethodAnalysis of hemograms and innate and adaptive immune responses in 95 children between age 1 to 6 years with episodes of recurrent respiratory infections (test group n = 39) and without these episodes (control group n = 56) was carried out. The production of reactive oxygen intermediates by peripheral blood cells stimulated by phorbol myristate acetate was analyzed. Additionally, the number of B lymphocytes, auxiliary T lymphocytes, and cytotoxic cells was determined using flow cytometry. ResultsResults from both groups did not show statistically significant differences in red blood cells, total leukocytes count, and the differential neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes count. The analysis of the number of B lymphocytes, auxiliary T lymphocytes (LTCD4), and cytotoxic cells (LTCD8) also did not show any difference between both groups. However, the production of radical oxygen intermediates was significantly reduced in the test group as compared to the control group (p < 0.05). ConclusionsThere was no difference in the analysis of hemograms, leukograms, or the number of lymphocytes, LTCD4, LTCD8, or LTCD19. The reduced production of oxygen intermediates in the affected group suggests that these children's microbicide capacity is compromised, which may be related to their recurrent respiratory infections.

THE EFFECT OF WEAVING ACTIVITIES WITH BANANA LEAVES ON FINE MOTOR ABILITY EARLY OF CHILDHOOD

This research aims to determine the effect of weaving activities on fine motor skills in TK Pertiwi 26-13 Bogares Kidul. This research uses a quantitative approach method by carrying out Field Research. This research presents data in the form of numbers using statistical data analysis which has the aim of testing hypotheses and data analysis using regression analysis. The results of the research show that the regression analysis of Y = 5.592 + 0.579X, the equation shows a lot of at least a child's fine motor capacity. Banana leaf weaving affects the fine motor skills of Pertiwi Kindergarten 26-13 Bogares Kidul. The conclusions drawn are: banana leaf weaving give positive affects on fine motor skills development of Pertiwi Kindergarten 26-13 Bogares Kidul children. The contribution of the effectiveness of banana leaf weaving to fine motor skills is seventy-four percent. Based on the reaction analysis and analysis that has been carried out in this research, it can be concluded that the banana leaf weaving variable has a positive and increasing effect on fine motor skills.

Critical Reflection and the Limits of Parental Authority

ABSTRACTIn modern pluralist societies, the meaning and value of individual autonomy is highly contested. Typically, some religious groups deny the ideal of leading a self‐directed life and regard strict obedience to God's commands as the primary goal of child education. This article pursues the question of whether a liberal state may legitimately interfere with parental authority in order to protect the development of a child's inner capacity for autonomy. It is argued that the ability to critically re‐evaluate one's life plan is valuable for the offspring of secular and pious parents alike. Therefore, restrictions on parental rights can be justified within a liberal theoretical framework that is neutral between autonomous and heteronomous conceptions of the good. However, religious parents need not be prepared to call their most important tenets into question; they may foster their children's capacity for critical reflection in other ways. Since the vast majority of religious families meet this requirement, state interventions are rarely warranted.

Sexing the Child

Sexing the Child

Reconceptualizing non-pharmacologic approaches to Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) and Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS): A theoretical and evidence–based approach. Part II: The clinical application of nonpharmacologic care for NAS/NOWS

There has been increasing emphasis on the importance of the development of self-regulatory capacities of the individual as the cornerstone of development. The caregivers' abilities to manage their own attention, emotions, physiology and behaviors influence the development of the child's self-regulatory and interactive capacities, and thereby their overall development. Newborns prenatally exposed to psychoactive substances and/or to other prenatal stressors such as maternal poor nutrition, increased maternal stress, trauma, difficult and/or impoverished environments, in tandem with genetic predispositions, can result in alterations to their neurodevelopment that predispose them to self-regulatory problems that can be expressed at any stage of life. The care of infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS)/Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS) and their mother/caregiver is a window of opportunity to assess the regulatory and co-regulatory capacities of both, and to provide holistic interventions with the goal of empowering the mother/caregiver in their own self-knowledge/self-regulation capacities and their crucial role in promoting the healthy development of their children. Non-pharmacologic care for the infant with NAS/NOWS is the first line of treatment and of paramount importance. Yet, current approaches are based on a limited scope of infant functioning, and the scoring systems in current use do not result in individualized and specific non-pharmacologic care of the infant, which can result in excessive or insufficient medication and a lack of caregiver appreciation for the infant's strengths, difficulties and early development. The interventions described here are based on the infant's signs of dysregulation in four neurobehavioral subsystems that can be dysregulated by NAS/NOWS, the infant's adaptive or maladaptive responses to return to a regulated functioning, and the co-regulatory behaviors of the infant and the mother/caregiver. In Part I of this two-part series on re-conceptualizing non-pharmacologic care for NAS/NOWS we laid the foundation for a new treatment approach, one grounded in developmental theory and evidence-based observations of infant and interpersonal neurobiology. Here, in Part II, we outline actionable, individually tailored evaluations and approaches to non-pharmacologic NAS/NOWS treatment based on strategies to support the regulatory capacities and development of 4 key domains: 1) autonomic; 2) motor/tone; 3) sleep/awake state control; and 4) sensory modulation subsystems.

Pollution at schools and children's aerobic capacity.

Poor respiratory health is a major cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide, and children are especially vulnerable. Existing research in economics has documented the effect of pollution on severe health outcomes, such as hospitalizations for asthma and infant death. However, evidence on the effect of air pollution on less extreme measures of respiratory health is limited, because these effects are difficult to measure. Using a more sensitive measure, aerobic capacity ( ), I study the impact of air pollution on respiratory performance of children. I combine school-grade level data from the California Physical Fitness Test from 2009 to 2017 with local air pollution and weather data to estimate the impact on student aerobic capacity of fluctuations in air pollution levels on testing days. Ozone affects child aerobic capacity at levels even below the Environmental Protection Agency thresholds.