Researchers from the University of Delaware conducted a study in which 48 participants completed a word-learning task in a resting and in an exercise condition. During the resting measure, children were taught the names of novel objects. After a three-minute task, they were tested on their ability to recognize the words. For children who engaged in a three-minute aerobic exercise (swimming,) results showed a 13% increase in ability to recognize vocabulary words compared to other groups. How can this information be helpful for us as speech pathologists? Incorporate some movement into therapy sessions! This can be completed through obstacle courses, jumping or dancing while incorporating vocabulary specific to the activity (e.g., twirl, spin, crawl, etc.)
Pruitt, Madison; Morini, Giovanna (2021): Exercise and word learning (Pruitt & Morini, HA journals. Dataset. https://doi.2021). ASorg/10.23641/asha.14462187.v1