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Poster Session 5, 3:15 PM - 4:00 PM: Campus Center Auditorium [A30]

Presenter: Marie Fandy

Faculty Sponsor: Christine Woodward St Laurent

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Kinesiology

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Early childhood is a critical period of cognitive growth. Executive function (EF: inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility) is tied to school readiness, self-regulation, and academic outcomes. Electroencephalography (EEG) offers a noninvasive way to assess neural indicators of cognition, providing insight into attention, cognitive control, and brain activity. While acute bouts of structured physical activity (PA) have improved behavioral and EEG measures of EF in preadolescent children, these effects are less studied in preschoolers. Before assessing PA efficacy in this age group, it is essential to establish age-appropriate, developmentally feasible protocols. PURPOSE: To inform the development of feasible and acceptable protocol components to assess brain activity via EEG measures during cognitive tasks following an acute bout of PA in preschool-aged (3-5 year old) children. METHODS: This study was a two-phased, mixed-methods pilot feasibility study. The first phase entailed developing and refining protocol components and considerations related to PA activities and EEG measurement. The second phase included pilot testing these components with preschool participants to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of the protocol. RESULTS: This project is ongoing, but we anticipate that our pilot testing will result in decisional information. CONCLUSION: These findings will guide the refinement of developmentally appropriate PA, EEG, and cognitive task procedures. This will directly inform the establishment of protocols to be used in studies designed to evaluate the cognitive and neural effects of acute PA in preschool children.