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Children's Learning & Development

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Physical fitness helps children think, read, learn

Several recent studies add to the evidence that physical fitness boosts cognitive processing in children.

Air pollution exposure walking to school linked to slower growth of working memory
  • A large study has found higher levels of traffic-related air pollution, still within the EU safe limits, are associated with slower growth in working memory capacity in primary/elementary school children.

A Spanish study investigating the effects of traffic-related air pollution on children walking to school has found higher levels of particulate matter and black carbon were associated with decreased growth in working memory capacity.

Finger tracing helps children doing geometry problems
  • Finger tracing key elements in worked problems seems to help some students better understand and apply mathematical concepts.

I've reported before on studies showing how gesturing can help children with mathematics and problem-solving. A new Australian study involving children aged 9-13 has found that finger-tracing has a similar effect.

Children with Alzheimer's gene may be more vulnerable to brain damage from smog

A small study involving 50 children and teens living in Mexico City (aged 13.4 ± 4.8 years) has found that those with the 'Alzheimer's gene' APOEε4 (22 of the 50) were more vulnerable to the effects of air pollution on cognition.

Aerobic fitness & motor ability counteracts dangers of obesity for developing children’s brains
  • Brain imaging has revealed that aerobic fitness and motor speed/agility in overweight children, but not strength, is associated with greater gray matter in some brain regions, some of which are also associated with better academic performance.

A Spanish study involving 101 overweight/obese children (aged 8-11) has found that aerobic capacity and motor ability is associated with a greater volume of gray matter in several cortical and subcortical brain regions.

Being short of sleep may harm brain development
  • Brain scans of children with sleep apnea have found extensive reductions in gray matter.
  • Recordings of brain activity show that children's brains respond to sleep deprivation differently than adults’ brains do, and that this is linked to myelination of nerves in a specific area.
  • Sleep assessment from birth to age 7 has found that children getting less than the recommended levels of sleep at age 3 and after, were more likely to have cognitive and behavioral problems at age 7.

Untreated sleep apnea in children shrinks brain & may slow development

Brain scans of children who have moderate or severe obstructive sleep apnea have found significant reductions of gray matter across the brain.

Parents' math anxiety can undermine children's math achievement
  • 1st- & 2nd-grade children learned less math and developed more math anxiety when math-anxious parents frequently helped with their math homework.
  • Children with math-anxious parents who rarely helped with their math homework were not affected.

A study of 438 first- and second-grade students and their primary caregivers has revealed that parents' math anxiety affects their children's math performance — but (and this is the surprising bit) only when they frequently help them with their math homework.

No advantage for bilingual children in executive function
  • A new study adds to recent research challenging the idea that bilingualism benefits children's executive function.

The idea that bilingual children have superior executive function compared to monolingual children has been challenged in recent research. Executive function controls your attention, and helps with such tasks as remembering instructions, controlling responses, and shifting swiftly between tasks.

Is it really better to read print books to your toddler?
  • A comparison of non-interactive electronic books and their print counterparts has found that toddlers learned more from the electronic books, but this was accounted for by their greater attention and engagement.

A new issue for parents to stress over is the question of whether reading digital books with your toddler or preschooler is worse than reading traditional print books.

Air pollution linked to children's low GPAs
  • A large study links high levels of motor vehicle emissions around the home to poorer academic performance in children.
  • The findings support other studies that found similar results looking at vehicle pollution around schools.

Data from 1,895 fourth and fifth grade children living in El Paso, Texas has found that those who were exposed to high levels of motor vehicle emissions had significantly lower GPAs, even when accounting for other factors known to influence school performance.

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