The Effect Of 12 Weeks Of Moderate To Vigorous Intensity Rope Skipping On Executive Function In Preschool Children

Executive function is a high-level cognitive processing that regulates complex tasks and plays a very important role in human mental development.The preschool years are an important and critical period for the development of executive function,and its trajectory is influenced by a variety of factors.A study by Diamond and Lee(2011)found that acute aerobic exercise and long-term aerobic exercise had an improved effect on the development of executive function in children,but the effect of exercise intervention on preschoolers is unclear.The present study selected rope skipping exercise,which is appropriate for preschoolers,for a 12-week moderate-to-vigorous intensity exercise intervention to investigate its effects on behavioral aspects of executive function and brain activation in preschoolers.This paper attempts to answer this question through two studies.In Study 1,a mixed experimental design with pre-and post-test was used to select 144 preschool children(74 boys)with an average age of 5.77(±0.30)years,88 as an intervention group and 56 as a control group.The intervention group underwent a rope skipping exercise intervention for 40 minutes three times a week for a total of 12 weeks.Exercise intensity was monitored using an three-dimensional accelerometer,and the average duration of moderate-to-vigorous exercise per session was 62.67% of the total exercise time.Tests of executive function in preschoolers were conducted before and after the intervention.Executive function was assessed using the EF Touch testing software,which includes tests of inhibitory control(spatial conflict arrow task,animal Go/No-go task),working memory(working memory span task),and cognitive flexibility(flexible item selection task).Results revealed significant time and group interaction for the accuracy of the Go,with simple effects resulting in significantly higher accuracy of the Go on the post-test than on the pre-test in the intervention group and non-significant pre-and post-test differences in the control group.The time and group interaction for simple reaction time was significant,and simple effects analysis revealed that the simple reaction time was significantly smaller in the intervention group post-test than in the pre-test,and the difference was not significant in the control group.The remaining indicators were not significantly different.The results indicated that the 12-week moderate-to-vigorous intensity rope skipping exercise intervention was beneficial for preschoolers’ executive function,as evidenced by a significant improvement in response inhibition and no significant improvement in interference inhibition,working memory,or cognitive flexibility.In Study 2,a cross sectional research was used,in which 10 children(7 boys)with a mean age of 5.71(±0.27)years were selected after participated in the exercise intervention,and 8 preschoolers(6 boys)with a mean age of 5.70(±0.36)years who did not participate in the intervention.Using near-infrared spectral imaging,an adapted version of the Flanker task and the Go/No-go task were selected to measure the brain activation of the subjects when completing the above tasks,and the dorsolateral prefrontal and ventrolateral prefrontal lobes were selected as the regions of interest.Results revealed no significant differences in behavioral outcomes between the two groups of subjects under the interference inhibition task,and there was a significant difference in activation levels in the prefrontal lobes of the brain.Specifically,the intervention group showed reduced activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal in the congruent condition,increased activation in the right dorsolateral prefrontal in the incongruent condition,and increased activation in the right dorsolateral prefrontal and right ventrolateral prefrontal in the conflict effect in the intervention group compared to the control children.There were significant differences in behavioral outcomes under the response inhibition task,with the control group better than the intervention group,while there were no significant differences with respect to the NIRS data.The results suggest that a 12-week moderate-to-vigorous intensity rope skipping exercise intervention influenced the activation pattern of the brain’s lateral prefrontal lobes in preschoolers during the completion of interference inhibition task.In summary,the main results of this paper suggest that(1)12 weeks of moderate-to-vigorous intensity rope skipping exercise significantly improved response inhibition in preschool children aged 5-6 years.(2)Aerobic exercise interventions may affect the pattern of lateral prefrontal activation in the brains of5-6 year-old children.There was no difference in behavioral performance after the exercise intervention,and the decrease in activation in the consistent condition suggests that the exercise intervention saved the preschooler’s brain from recruiting neural resources for simple tasks;the increase in activation in the inconsistent condition suggests that the exercise intervention increased the brain’s ability to recruit more neural resources for complex tasks.Therefore,based on the plasticity of executive function development in early childhood,moderate-to-vigorous intensity aerobic exercise can be used as a physical activity component for preschoolers,which has some guiding implications for physical education of preschoolers.