Single-day Repeatability Of Acute Aerobic Exercise Effects On Cognition And Academic Performance In Children.

Aerobic exercise is known for its acute benefits to children’s cognitive and academic performance, leading to the idea that inserting multiple exercise breaks throughout school days may enhance children’s cognition and learning. However, this idea is only speculated because of limited research on the single-day repeatability of acute aerobic exercise effects on children’s cognitive and academic performance. PURPOSE: Investigate whether the acute effects of aerobic exercise on inhibitory control, math, and reading performance can be repeated in one hour within a single day in children. METHODS: Seventy-seven children (Age = 9.45 ± 0.88 years, 46 males) completed a baseline day to measure academic performance and maximum heart rate (HRmax). On the experimental day, participants were randomly assigned to an exercise group (N = 35) or a control group (N = 42). The exercise group completed two sessions of 15-min moderate-intensity continuous exercise (MICE) on a treadmill at 70% HRmax, while the control group completed two 15-min reading sessions, with the two sessions being one hour apart. Participants completed a modified flanker task before and after as well as math and reading tests after each of the two assigned sessions. A 2 (Group: MICE, control) × 2 (Session: 1st, 2nd) × 2 (Time: pretest, posttest) x 2 (Congruency: congruent, incongruent) repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to analyze inhibitory control performance. A similar 2 (Group) x 2 (Session) repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted to analyze the math and reading performance, separately. RESULTS: A Group × Session × Time interaction was found for coefficient of variation of response time (CVRT) (F = 5.560, p < 0.021, η2 = 0.070). Among all follow-up pairwise comparisons, only the control group showed increased CVRT from pretest (0.225 ± 0.045 and posttest (0.274 ± 0.058) of the 1st session (p = 0.040). No other significant effect involving the Group × Time interaction on inhibitory control performance or involving the Group main effect on math and reading performance was observed (Fs ≤ 0.162, ps ≥ 0.688, η2 ≤ 0.002). CONCLUSIONS: While a single session of MICE may transiently enhance the stability in response time during inhibitory control performance, such an exercise-induced effect may not be repeatable in one hour within the same day in children.