Physical Activity and kids learning and behaviour
Kids at PLAY
How Physical Activity affects kids learning and behaviour
“Skills of the eye, ear, muscle and mind are similar.” ~Rosenbaum
There is a direct link between physical activity and brain power. Exercise influences learning and behaviour in kids.
There is a connection between intelligence and the ability to use your body in different ways. Research has shown that increased kids' physical activity provides greater academic achievements. A 20 min moderate aerobic activity - active playing, walking, easy jogging provides better reading comprehension.
So how does physical activity improve behaviour?
Our actions impact how our brain models itself. But how our brain models itself impacts our actions.
When babies try to grab a toy for the first time, they just move around as they can, then suddenly they roll over. That turns the head around in space and awakens the vestibular system, getting those structures developed. It gets easier to maintain orientation and move around better in their environment.
One type of exercise that best affects the development of the brain is aerobic exercise: active play with family and friends, walk, hop, jog, run, skip, leap, push, pull. These basic movements promote physical literacy - the competence, confidence and motivation to be active for life.
Physical literacy
Benefits of aerobic exercise on kids’ brain:
Increased blood flow - brain gets more oxygen, more nutrients, can develop better
Increased neural connections and function in the brain
Increased hippocampus - better cognition, memory, learning, certain aspects of behaviour
Improved executive function - an overseeing of our brain functions, controls the latency between a stimulus and action. Better executive function creates quicker reaction times, being able to find the right reaction in any situation, controlling our actions.
Active PLAY is extremely important in kids’ lives.
PLAY is a strategic, sensory-rich, coordinative exercise for kids with benefits, like:
Improved grammar skills
Better reading aptitude
Increased brain function and neural plasticity
Sensory skills allow humans to take in sensory input, process it and then create the appropriate motor output.
To develop this, kids need to play in a variety of environments: climb over, crawl under, jump over, hop to the side, leap, move on single leg to develop their balance, proprioception, swing to learn basic push/pull movement, be in different kinds of surfaces, with shoes on, barefoot, so they can develop a better sensory system.
These are the various sensory skills:
Sensory skills
By doing physical activity that elevates the heart rate and uses a wide array of sensory skills, kids’ brain develops and progresses their academic and behavioural skills.
Directional awareness is the ability to discern personal and global direction from a variety of perspectives.
Crossing the midline is a crucial body movement for humans - it increases neural speed and connections. Here’s why:
The right side of the barin is responsible for movements of the right side of your body, while the left side of the barin controls movements of the left side of your body
When one crosses the midline, the brain gets challenged and needs to quickly pass information between the two sides to be able to effectively control the crossing movements.
When they do this frequently, it increases neural density, resulting in increased directional awareness and overall brain function, cognition.
Temporal awareness is the ability to discern rhythm.
It improves grammar - using words, phrases
Increases reading aptitude
Introducing music in young kids’ play creates a rhythm of movement. And once kids can identify the rhythm of movement, that becomes an important skill. They will be able to identify different tempos - slow, fast, but also a middle one, not too slow, not too fast. They will also be able to understand time - how much is a minute, for example. It will help their ability to throw/catch a ball - as they have to coordinate the rhythm of their body’s movements with the ball's rhythm of movement. And that requires precision, temporal awareness. It also increases their grammar and reading skills, makes it easier to learn new languages.
Visual awareness is the ability to focus and track objects.
Kids in our modern society spend less time outdoors, more time in front of an electronic device
Instead of scanning the horizon, looking at objects at various distances, they look at an object at the same distance for a long period of time.
Myopia - nearsightedness is an eye condition that can develop due to too much close-up focus. It is a worldwide epidemic, affecting lots of kids. Peripheral vision is also decreased when having myopia
One of the ways to help kids avoid this is to get them outside to play, to scan the horizon, to focus on objects at various distances
Visual tracking is important in being able to follow words on a page, on a board.
To facilitate this, kids can play a variety of games where they focus to things that are close, far away, moving around and tracking objects with their eyes
Auditory awareness is the ability to process direct and indirect auditory cues.
It is associated with assessing rhythm - helps with grammar, words and phrases
Harsh sounds, consonants are processed on our left side of the brain, while the right side ear is taking that information
Right ear dominance can improve auditory skills
Playing games where kids have to listen and act on various sounds helps auditory awareness and help with academic skills, too
Vestibular awareness is the ability to orient the head in relation to the ground and body
Hypo-vestibular means an under-stimulated system - these are the constantly bouncing around, hyperactive kids, who are trying to stimulate their under-stimulated vestibular system
Hyper-vestibular means over-stimulated system - kids having this don’t want to move too much around, as their vestibular system gets over-stimulated by any little slide, spin, movement and it makes them feel dizzy, uncomfortable
Doing rocking, spinning, balancing activities helps develop the vestibular system
ADHD is linked to hypo-vestibular system, poor balance, motor performance, less ability to focus, emotional inhibition
Physical activities focusing on balance and vestibular training improves auditory processing, cognition, inhibition, limbic system, emotional development
Tactile awareness is the ability to process touch appropriately
It helps kids differentiate between competitive or cooperative touch, helps decrease aggression in kids
Rolling on the ground is a great way to create tactile awareness
It is also very important for kids to play together, bump into each other and differentiate between a friendly touch, someone accidentally bumping into another kid and not overreact emotionally or be aggressive about it versus a combative move
Contact sports require and develop tactile awareness, too
Cooclusion:
Take every moment you have and Play/Move with your children. Get them outdoors, engage their senses, make physical activity fun and enjoyable from early ages so it becomes part of their lives and their regular routine as they get older.
““Play is the work of the child.””
