Effects of deprivation on exercise play in nursery school children

Effect of a motor skill-based intervention in the relationship of individual and contextual factors in children with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder from low-income families

Contextual opportunities facilitate skill acquisition, and the interaction between individual and contextual factors is fundamental to enhancing health and social parameters in children with DCD. This study examined (1) the influence of Mastery Motivational Climate (MMC) and Exercise Play Climate (EPC) interventions on motor performance, physical activity, self-perceptions, BMI, engagement in the lessons, playtime, and screen time of children without and with DCD, (2) the relationship between motor performance, self-perceptions, BMI, engagement in the physical education lessons, playtime, and screen factors in the children's physical activity levels in the lessons (PA) pre-and post-test. Children (N = 255, 98 children with Developmental Coordination Disorder - DCD; 157 children without DCD) were randomly assigned to MMC and EPC. Physical Activity levels in the lessons, motor performance, self-perceptions of physical competence, body mass indexes, appropriate motor engagement with success in the lessons, and active play and screen time were assessed. Regarding intervention impact, from pre-to post-tests, the results showed increases (1) PA in children with DCD in the EPC group and without DCD in the MMC group; (2) locomotor and ball skills for children with DCD in both climates; (3) locomotor and ball skills for children without DCD in the MMC group; (4) self-perceptions of competence for children with DCD in the MMC group; and (5) engagement with success for all children in both climates. A slight decrease in BMI for children with DCD in both climates was found. Regarding the associations, at post-test, engagement with success explained (1) PA levels for children with DCD in the MMC group and children without DCD in the EPC group; (2) active playtime explained PA for children with DCD in the EPC group; (3) ball skills explained PA for children without DCD in the MMC group. The intervention promoted overall increases in motor performance and children's engagement in the lesson. The intervention strengthened the role of ball skills performance, engagement with success, and active play; however, these relationships were different across groups.

A randomised controlled trial of multiple periods of outdoor free-play to increase moderate-to-vigorous physical activity among 3 to 6 year old children attending childcare: study protocol

BACKGROUND

The implementation of physical activity interventions in centre-based childcare services has been recommended to improve child health. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of scheduling multiple periods of outdoor free play in increasing the time children spend in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) during childcare.

METHODS

The study will employ a between group cluster randomised controlled trial design. Fourteen childcare services in the Hunter New England region of New South Wales, Australia, who currently implement a single session of free outdoor play between their core operational hours of 9 am to 3 pm will be recruited into the trial. Childcare services will be randomised to an intervention or a no intervention control group. Childcare services in the intervention group will be supported by an early childhood education specialist to provide three periods of outdoor free play for children between the hours of 9 am to 3 pm. Each period of outdoor free play will be at least 15 min in duration but must equate to their total usual duration of outdoor play. Services in the control group will continue to implement a single period of outdoor play. The primary trial outcome is minutes of time children spend in MVPA whilst in care assessed objectively via accelerometer over 5 days. Outcome assessment will occur at baseline and 3 months post baseline. Generalised Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) under an intention to treat framework will be used to compare differences between groups in the primary trial outcome at follow-up. Sensitivity analysis will be conducted to test assumptions of missing data. Per protocol analysis will be performed using services that implemented the intervention as intended and subgroup analysis undertaken by gender and baseline physical activity levels of children.

DISCUSSION

The study tests a simple ecological intervention that has the potential to increase child physical activity in care.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry 12616000347460 . Prospectively registered 17th March 2016.

The Rough Play of Adolescent Boys of Differing Sociometric Status

Two forms of rough-and-tumble play (R&T/Chase and R&T/Rough) were observed in a group of young adolescent boys while they were on the playground during their school recess period. Although little variation was observed for the R&T/Chase category, sociometrically defined average and rejected boys, compared to popular boys, spent a significant portion of their time in R&T/Rough. This latter form of R&T was, in turn, related to aggression and perspective-taking status for rejected boys; it was related to dominance status for all boys. Additionally, rejected and average boys chose to engage in R&T/Rough with children who were less dominant than they. R&T/Chase was not reliably correlated with other measures. These findings are interpreted as supporting the claim that some children exploit play bouts for their own dominance-exhibition ends.

The effects of social deprivation on levels of social play in the laboratory rat Rattus norvegicus

Previous studies on a variety of species suggest the existence of a 'rebound' effect in social play: young animals may show heightened levels of play, following temporary deprivation of opportunity for social interaction. The present experiment investigated this phenomenon in greater detail, by measuring the effect of different types of social deprivation on levels of social play in prepubescent laboratory rats Rattus norvegicus. In one deprivation condition, subjects were denied whole-body contact, but not other forms of social interaction; in another condition, subjects experienced more extensive isolation. Both kinds of deprivation produced equally large post-deprivation increases in social play, suggesting that the important factor in producing the rebound effect is the absence of opportunity for whole-body contact - the predominant component of "rough and tumble" social play.

Does play matter? Functional and evolutionary aspects of animal and human play

In this paper I suggest that play is a distinctive behavioural category whose adaptive significance calls for explanation. Play primarily affords juveniles practice toward the exercise of later skills. Its benefits exceed its costs when sufficient practice would otherwise be unlikely or unsafe, as is particularly true with physical skills and socially competitive ones. Manipulative play with objects is a byproduct of increased intelligence, specifically selected for only in a few advanced primates, notably the chimpanzee.

The adaptiveness of play in pongid evolution is traced through the probable changes in selective pressures that occurred in hominid evolution. It is argued that fantasy was an emergent property in hominids, made possible by symbolic intelligence and language, and serving to make play complex enough to continue to provide useful practice for increasingly complex later skills.

The advent of organised instruction and education has meant that play's unplanned, intrinisic goal-setting could be replaced by extrinsic goal-setting in the systematic development of particular skills. However, the need to ensure adequate motivation has continued to give play educational value. In addition, its capacity to enhance innovative behaviour seems to be a residual function of play which has acquired a new cultural importance.

Physical activity levels and prompts in young children at recess: a two-year study of a bi-ethnic sample

We investigated physical activity and encouragement for activity in a bi-ethnic cohort during recess. Activity and associated interactions of 287 children were recorded at preschool and again 2.2 years later. Children expended nearly twice as much energy at preschool recess than at elementary recess. Activity levels declined as recess time elapsed. At preschool, European-American children engaged in more moderate to vigorous activity than Mexican-Americans. As participants moved to elementary school, teachers' prompts to be active decreased and prompts from peers increased. Boys and girls received similar amounts of activity prompts at preschool, but prompts to boys increased over time. The findings suggest that school environments could be altered to promote healthful physical activity among young children.

Effect of physical stimulation on motor inhibition in children

The effect of physical stimulation on motor inhibition and cognitive performance of 70 third-grade children was examined. 46 subjects participated in a brief, but strenuous obstacle course. Their performance on two motor inhibition tasks, a short-term memory/attentional task, and a test assessing reflectivity was assessed before the stimulation, immediately afterward, and again after a 30-min. delay. A control group (n = 24) received comparable experience without the physical intervention. Physical stimulation facilitated fine motor inhibition at both the immediate and delayed retest. The intervention interfered with an apparent practice effect on the attentional task. No condition effects were noted for gross motor performance or reflectivity, although girls were significantly more reflective at retest. It is proposed that physical stimulation augments certain aspects of inhibitory control in children.

Medical psychology in exercise and sport

Several psychological outcomes that accompany acute and chronic exercise have medical significance. Transient reductions in somatic tension and subjective anxiety appear most reliable. Symptom abatement in moderate depression can occur with chronic exercise in a manner comparable to psychotherapy and may offer a better prognosis in some instances. Other cognitive, behavioral, and perceptual events associated with exercise may assist in managing mental health, and exercise has been successfully used as a therapeutic adjunct in a variety of psychiatric disorders. Regular exercise may also complement treatments designed to manage aspects of coronary-prone behavior and psychoendocrine responsivity to mental stress. The lack of strict experimental control or effective placebo contrasts in most exercise studies precludes a convincing argument that exercise causes the psychological outcomes observed. Rather, expectancy of benefits, generalized treatment or attention effects, social reinforcement, and past history or selection bias represent likely alternatives. These competing explanations do not discount, however, that many individuals benefit in a clinically significant way. Exercise offers a low-cost alternative or adjunct with side effects that appear largely health-related. Although the effective psychological dosage or modality has not been quantified, current physiologic guidelines of the American College of Sports Medicine (large muscle rhythmic activity, for 20 to 60 minutes, 3 to 5 days per week at 60 to 80 per cent age-adjusted maximal heart rate), or a weekly caloric cost of 2000 kcal, should be effective with little medical risk. However, no evidence confirms that an increase in metabolic or psychoendocrine tolerance to exercise is necessary or sufficient for psychological outcomes to occur. Although biologic adaptations are known to follow exercise training and subside with diminished activity, there is currently no objective evidence that habitual exercise leads to dependence. If exercise has use in managing subjective or somatic symptoms, these may return during periods of exercise abstinence. Moreover, despite popular hypotheses concerning endorphins and biogenic amines, no direct relationships have yet been shown between exercise-induced mood swings and peripheral biochemical events. A proportion of habitual runners have reported acute episodes of euphoria-like states during or following exercise, but this remains a subjective and unpredictable event that may be related to psychophysiologic relaxation or acute changes in self-esteem.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)