Poster Presentation

Paper ID : 1548-SSRC

Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran.

The aim of the present research was to determine the effect of an acute aerobic exercise session with different intensities on the executive function of 9-10 years old children. Thirty-six children with a mean age of 9.58 years (±0.50) were randomly assigned into two intervention groups and a control group. Exercise protocol included aerobic exercise on a treadmill with two different intensities of 60% and 80% of maximum heart rate (MHR) for 15 minutes. In the first stage, all experimental and control groups worked out the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Run (PACER) test for homogenization; then in the pre-test, working memory and inhibitory control were assessed via N-back and Stroop tests. After the end of the intervention period, when the heart rate reached 10 percent of the pre-training value, post-test was taken in all groups. A two-way Mixed Model Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) (3×2) was used to examine within and between-group differences in intervention and control groups. The results showed a significant improvement in children's working memory in the 60% MHR group compared to other groups. However, a significant difference in the inhibitory control variable was only seen in the 80% training group compared to other groups. The present research findings indicated that 15 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise can improve the working memory of children aged 9 to 10 years. In contrast, doing high-intensity exercise improved inhibitory control in these children. According to the study, different training intensities had varying effects on executive functions, namely working memory and inhibitory control, suggesting this area needs further exploration.

acute aerobic exercise"; children"; executive functions"; inhibitory control"; , "; working memory"; "