Abstract
Link Between Cognitive and Motor Skills
A recent study revealed that 4- to 6-year-olds who could walk farther during a timed test also scored higher on tests of thinking abilities and other measures of brain function. Most studies of the link between brain health and cardiorespiratory fitness have focused on older kids and adults. The new findings suggest that this link is evident even earlier in life, according to the researchers. Preschool children with higher estimated cardiorespiratory fitness had higher scores on academic ability tasks related to general intellectual abilities as well as their use of expressive language. They had better performance on computerized tasks requiring attention and multitasking skills, and they showed the potential for faster processing speeds and greater resource allocation in the brain when completing these computerized tasks. The findings don’t prove that heart-lung fitness improves thinking abilities in young children, but it adds to growing evidence that the two are closely linked, even as early as 4 years of age, according to the study authors.
Keye, S. A., Walk, A. M., Cannavale, C. N., Iwinski, S., McLoughlin, G. M., Steinberg, L. G., & Khan, N. A. (2021). Six-minute walking test performance relates to neurocognitive abilities in preschoolers. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 10, 584. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10040584
COVID-19 Time Capsule
In Word of Mouth I have summarized a number of research articles on children’s autobiographical memory and personal narratives. In recent months, due to COVID-19, children’s worlds have change dramatically. Providing children with ways to talk about their experiences and reduce the trauma they may be experiencing, Natalie Long has created COVID-19 time capsule worksheets appropriate for use with elementary school children. The worksheets can be download for free from: https://s3.letsembark.ca/long-creations/2020-COVID-19-Time-Capsule-EN-US.pdf
The activities include:
All About Me: including age, height, favorite things and aspirations
My Community: including space to draw your house, and notes about how they’re staying connected
Special Occasions: calendar to help mark all the events that happened and how your family celebrated them
Letter to Myself: to give them something to look back on in a few weeks, months, or even years
If this material is not available online when this issue of Word of Mouth is published, contact the editor of Word of Mouth at
Changes in Autism Severity
A MIND Institute study evaluated changes in autism symptom severity in early childhood and the potential factors associated with those changes. The researchers used the ADOS Calibrated Severity Score (CSS). They computed a severity change score for participants as the difference between their ADOS CSS scores at age 6 years and at age 3 years. A change of two points or more was considered a significant change in symptom severity. The study classified participants based on their severity change score into a Decreased Severity Group (28.8%), a Stable Severity Group (55.4%), and an Increased Severity Group (16.8%). Nearly 30% of young children had less severe autism symptoms at age 6 than they did at age 3. In some cases, children lost their autism diagnoses entirely. But some children appeared to get worse. The researchers were not able to predict which children would do well and which would develop more severe autism symptoms.
Optimal outcome is a standard achieved when someone previously diagnosed with ASD no longer meets autism diagnostic criteria due to loss of autism symptoms. In this study, seven participants had an ADOS CSS below the ASD cutoff at age 6, potentially indicating optimal outcome. Children showing decreasing symptom severity had better adaptive skills in multiple domains compared to those in the stable or increased severity groups. Girls with autism decreased in severity more than boys and increased in severity less than boys during early childhood. It may be that girls seem to have decreased autism severity because they are able to camouflage or hide their symptoms in social situations. Children with higher IQs were more likely to show a reduction in ASD symptoms.
Waizbard-Bartov, E., Ferrer, E., Young, G.S., Heath, B., Rogers, S., Wu Nordahl, C.W., Solomon, M. & Amaral, D.G. (2020) Trajectories of autism symptom severity change during early childhood. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44(3): 546–563. https://doi.org10.1007/s10803-020-04526-z