The Effects of Executive Function Training Program by Physical Activity on Response Inhibition in Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder

Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is among the childhood disorders. DCD generates motor problems, including developmental delay, impaired motor coordination, and partly neurological impairment. In addition to coordination and movement problems, a major problem in these children is a deficiency in executive functions. A critical executive function is response inhibition, i.e., related to the ability to stop thoughts, actions, and emotions. A new approach to treating cognitive and motor problems in children with executive dysfunction is applying physical activity. Due to the robust relationship between brain development responsible regions for motor coordination and executive function, special attention has been paid to the impact of physical activity interventions on the cognitive functions of children with DCD. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the effects of executive function training program by physical activity on response inhibition in children with DCD.

This was a quasi–experimental study with pretest–posttest and a control group design. The statistical population of this study was all children aged 9–12 years with DCD in Kermanshah City, Iran. Twenty children with DCD were selected by the convenience sampling method and randomly assigned into the control and experimental groups (n=10/group). To ensure the presence of DCD in these individuals, screening tools, including the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (Wilson et al., 2009) and Movement Assessment Buttery for Children (Henderson et al., 2007), were used. The subjects had no history of any specific disease and participated in this study with the consent of their families. The other research tools included Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Fifth Edition (Wechsler, 2014) and Stroop Test (Stroop, 1935). The experimental group participated in a designed physical activity protocol to enhance executive performance, i.e., held in the gym for 12 consecutive weeks and twice weekly for 70 minutes. Before and after the exercise, the response inhibition scores of all subjects were recorded using the Stroop Test at the pretest and posttest steps. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, such as central and dispersion indices, and inferential statistics, including univariate Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) in SPSS. The Independent Samples t–test was also used to investigate the significant differences in IQ pretest scores and response inhibition between groups. At all stages, the significance level of the tests was considered 0.05 (p<0.05).

The ANCOVA results reflected a significant difference in the posttest scores between the experimental and control groups after removing the pretest effect (p≤0.001). According to the eta–squared, 94% of the changes in response inhibition scores were due to the effect of exercise.

Overall, a 12–week executive function training program by physical activity improved response inhibition in children with DCD. Thus, it is suggested that children with DCD participate in exercise programs based on executive functions and high attentional load training.