Swimming a few laps likely won’t turn your child into the next Katie Ledecky or Michael Phelps, but it just might help them become the next J.K. Rowling or Stephen King.
A recent study by University of Delaware researchers suggests exercise can boost kids’ vocabulary growth. The article, published in the Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, details one of the first studies on the effect of exercise on vocabulary learning in children.
Children ages 6 to 12 were taught new words before doing one of three things — swimming, taking part in CrossFit exercises or completing a coloring sheet. The children who swam were 13% more accurate in follow up tests of the vocabulary words.
Motor Movement
It makes sense to the lead researcher, Maddy Pruitt, herself a former college swimmer who now regularly takes CrossFit classes.
“Motor movement helps in encoding new words,” she said, explaining that exercise is known to increase levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a protein Pruitt describes as the “Miracle-Gro of the brain.”
Pruitt conducted the research as part of her Master’s Capstone Project and graduated in 2020. She now works as a speech language pathologist at an elementary school in South Carolina, where she puts her findings into practice.
“My sessions are very rarely at a table,” she said. “I’ll take my kids out to the playground or we’ll take a walk around the school.”
Language Acquisition
Pruitt’s adviser and coauthor Giovanna Morini is building on the findings in her lab. Morini, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, said most research into exercise examines it from the angle of a healthy lifestyle, not much enters the domain of language acquisition. She said she sees this as a rich line of inquiry and has another student running a similar experiment now with toddlers.
“We were so excited about this study because it applies to clinicians, caregivers and educators who can put it into practice,” Morini said. “It’s simple stuff, nothing out of the ordinary. But it could really help boost the outcomes.”
StepUp Note
The StepUp approach to learning combines movement, rhythm, and repetition with an early learning curriculum. StepUp improves coordination of cognitive and motor skills in an educational environment that encourages self-evaluation and trial and error problem solving. As children progress through the program levels, they develop fluency in reading decoding, handwriting, and math fact retrieval.