RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION DESIGN © 2015 www.PosterPresentations.com • The most critical and intensive period of neural development occurs in children from zero to five years of age resulting in rapid development in cognition, language, and socio-emotional skills. • Physical activity, ‘any bodily movement produced by the skeletal muscles that results in energy expenditure’ (Caspersen et al., 1985), is being increasingly recognized as an important determinant of cognitive development in middle childhood and adulthood. • Only a few emerging studies on younger children exist due to challenges with assessing physical activity levels of toddlers <3 years of age. • Existing studies have shown that at least one cognitive outcome was improved with an increased duration and/or frequency activity (Carson et al., 2015). • As early childhood is the most active period for the establishing of neural connections, research into factors that may alter cognitive development may result in possible interventions to promote healthy early development INTRODUCTION • To examine the relationship between physical activity and cognitive development (language acquisition, social-emotional development, and adaptive behaviour) in 18-30 month old children. OBJECTIVE MATERIALS & METHODS Physical Activity Toddlers on average, engage in a total of 230 minutes of light (LPA) and moderate-to- vigorous (MVPA) intensity physical activity each day (Fig. 5 & 6). Cognitive Development No difference in outcomes between male and female participants (Fig. 3, 4, 5) RESULTS KEY FINDINGS PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT • Positive correlations established between weekly average MVPA and Bayley raw score, a measure of IQ, when accounting for gender. • Girls had a higher MVPA than boys. • No difference in cognitive outcomes between male & female participants . • 90% of participants met the Australian physical activity guidelines of 180 minutes of physical activity per day, most of which was achieved through LPA. 1 Undergraduate Summer Research Program 2 School of Science and Health 3 School of Social Science and Psychology 4 The MARCS Ins/tute for Brain, Behaviour & Development Hillary Nguyen 1,2 , Jill Hna/uk 2 , Karen MaUock 3,4 , Marina Kalashnikova 4 Physical activity and cognitive development in the first years of life 2430 month old children (N=28, female = 13) (monolingual, born fullterm) The Bayley Scales of Infant Development (Bayley) used to measure child’s cogni/ve ability Parents completed OZI (measure of toddler’s early recep/ve and produc/ve vocabulary size) Parents completed the ques/onnaire of frequency of engagement in ac/vi/es (e.g., outdoor play) Infants fiUed with Ac/graph GT3+ Accelerometer, worn for 4 days Total words M3L Weekly AVG LPA Weekly AVG MVPA Raw score (Bayley) 0.777* 0.634^ 0.588 0.755* Total words 0.652^ 0.347 0.779* M3L 0.476 0.324 Weekly AVG LPA 0.208 ^ Trend (p < 0.10) * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). 69 69.5 70 70.5 71 71.5 72 72.5 73 73.5 Male Female Raw Score Bayley Raw Score 310 315 320 325 330 335 340 Male Female Number of words Total Words 3.9 4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 Male Female Mean number of words used in a sentence Mean of longest 3 sentences (M3L) 0 50 100 150 200 250 Male Female Average minutes per day (minutes) Average minutes spent in LPA 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Male Female Average minutes per day in MVPA (minutes) Average minutes spent in MVPA Figures 5 & 6: Average minutes spent in LPA (left) & MVPA (right) in males & females Figures 3, 4, 5: Average Bayley raw score (left), word count from OZI (centre) and sentence length from OZI (right) for males and females RESULTS Table 1. Partial correlations (controlling for gender) between cognitive development, language development and physical activity accounting for gender (males n=7, females n=3) CONCLUSIONS Figure 1. The Bayley Scales of Infant Development Figure 2. Cognitive testing session with the Bayley Figure 3. Actigraph GT3+ accelerometer REFERENCES • Future research could consider other scales for cognitive development that can assessing development in other domains, e.g., attention, motor functioning. • Clear dose-response evidence obtained can inform future updates to national physical activity guidelines & initiate intervention strategies to promote optimal cognitive developed in toddlers. Carson, V, Hunter, S, Kuzik, N, Wiebe, S, Spence, J, Friedman, A et al. 2015, ‘SystemaXc review of physical acXvity and cogniXve development in early childhood’, J Sci Med Sport, vol. 15, pp. 1468 Caspersen, CJ, Powell, KE, Christenson, GM 1985, ‘Physical acXvity, exercise, and physical fitness: definiXons and disXncXons for healthrelated research’, Public Health Reports’, vol. 100, no. 2, pp. 126131 1 Corresponding author: Hillary Nguyen, School of Science and Health, Western Sydney University , Australia. Email: [email protected] Western Sydney University