Ten thousand steps and more. What if the best medicine was not physical activity (PA), as this column has been trying to demonstrate since 2017, but PA coupled with cognitive tasks? In recent years, a whole body of research has explored the synergies between the two types of training and attempted to determine the best modalities for combining them, in order to optimize the benefits for health and brain functions.
A French team has just published a pilot study evaluating Lü, a exergame, or active video game (such as Nintendo or Wii consoles), which allows you to learn while moving. To answer questions in mathematics, science, history, etc., participants throw a ball at an interactive wall, aiming for a target or the correct answer.
Born in Quebec, and broadcast for several years in Europe and France, this “interactive gymnasium” is made up of a high-definition laser video projector, a motion detection camera and an audiovisual unit, creating an immersive environment. To what extent can such a platform promote AP and learning? Aurélie Goncalves, teacher-researcher in sciences and techniques of physical and sporting activities (Staps) and public health at the University of Nîmes, and her colleagues, includingarticle appeared on February 23 in the journal JMIR Serious Games, enrolled 79 students aged 7 to 11 from a primary school (from CE1 to CM2). For three weeks, they had eleven half-hour collective sessions of Lü, divided into three periods: a four-minute warm-up with a dance application, twenty minutes of mathematics, then three minutes of calming down with meditation.
Improved concentration
The authors first show that this strategy, which corresponds to the thirty minutes of daily PA now recommended in primary schools, is feasible and well accepted by parents, teachers and young participants. In this limited experimental time, encouraging effects have already been observed. Thus, researchers note an increase of 3.6% (up to 8% for CM2) in the physical literacyconcept which corresponds to the acquisition of “ the skill, confidence, knowledge and motivation needed to engage in physical activity for life”.
“ This means that these children better understand the value of physical activity”, summarizes Aurélie Goncalves. The evaluations also highlight a significant increase (of around 10%) in motivation for mathematics, but without any improvement in performance in this subject. More surprisingly, positive effects were measured on learning French (not worked with the Lü platform), with in particular an increase, in this discipline, in concentration and academic results. The researchers, however, note limitations to this pilot study, which did not look for possible gains in physical fitness, nor compared the children to a control group.
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