This is the conclusion of a study where researchers taught 48 children between the ages of 6 and 12 years old before swimming, doing exercises like CrossFit or coloring them.
Swimmers performed 13% better on the new vocabulary tracking test. This result did not surprise study author Madison Pruitt, a former college swimmer who was in Tela. He led the research when he was a graduate student at Hua University.
“Sports helps to encode new words,” Pruitt said at a university press conference.
Pruitt also participates in the CrossFit course, he said that exercise can increase the level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, this protein is like “brain fertilizer.” He explained why swimming can improve children’s ability to learn new words, but CrossFit does not.
Pruitt said it’s about how much energy is needed from the brain for each exercise. Swimming is an activity that children can do without much thinking or guidance. But because CrossFit exercises are unfamiliar to them, they must learn these movements, which requires mental energy.
Now, Pruitt is a speech pathologist at an elementary school in South Carolina, where she uses her discoveries in exercise and vocabulary to help her students.
“My meetings are rarely held on the table,” he commented. “I take my kids to the park or we walk around the school.”
The study’s co-author, Giovanna Morini, is an assistant professor of science and communication disorders and Pruitt’s advisor in the study.
“We are very excited about this research because it applies to clinicians, nurses and educators who can put it into practice,” Morini said in a press release. “These are simple things, nothing special. But it really helps to improve the results.”
The research results were published in the latest issue of the journal Journal of Speech, Language and Listening Research.
Now, Morini’s department is conducting similar experiments with young children.