Cognitive Benefits of Open-Skill Sports in Childhood: Evidence from the ABCD Study.

Abstract

BACKGROUND Sports participation in childhood is known to benefit physical health, but its impact on cognitive development, particularly comparing open-skill and closed-skill sports, is less understood. METHODS This study analyzed baseline data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, comprising 11,869 children aged 9-10 years. Participants were categorized into open-skill sports group (OSG), closed-skill sports group (CSG), and non-sport group (NSG). Cognitive performance was assessed using seven tasks from the NIH Toolbox, covering executive function, processing speed, and language domains. Group differences were examined using ANCOVA, controlling for sex, race, parental education, income, Area Deprivation Index (ADI), body mass index (BMI), and total time spent in activities. RESULTS In the final analytical sample of 9,898 ABCD participants, the OSG outperformed both the CSG and NSG on executive function tasks, including the Flanker task (p < .01) and List Sorting Working Memory task (p < .01). No significant group differences were found on tasks assessing processing speed, or language domains. CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that participation in open-skill sports may be associated with enhanced cognitive performance in childhood, particularly in executive function and working memory. These results support the idea that dynamic and cognitively demanding activities could play a role in cognitive development during key developmental periods.