Physical Activity with Cognitive Demands and Executive Functions (WISC-V) in Children Aged 6 to 8 Years: A Quasi-Experimental Study in an Intermediate Colombian Municipality

Abstract

Problem Statement. The 2024–2026 evidence has shifted the debate on physical activity and childhood cognition towards programs with intentional cognitive demands and a school active break format. Three gaps remain: scarce longitudinal evidence in intermediate municipalities in Latin America with limited resources, absence of studies that articulate session-by-session cognitive demand with standardized executive domains, and underrepresentation of the 6–8 age group.

Approach. Quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent control group and pre-test-posttest measurement. A total of 71 schoolchildren aged 6 to 8 years (experimental n = 37; control n = 34) from a public institution in Malaga (Santander, Colombia) participated. The intervention was a 9-week school-based program operationalized as active breaks with session-by-session mapping of cognitive demand (Diamond & Ling, 2016; Masini et al., 2023). Executive function was measured with the five primary indices of the WISC-V. The analysis employed a Linear Mixed Model with random intercept per participant, REML, and Satterthwaite degrees of freedom (Groß & Möller, 2023); Cohen's d and partial η² are reported.

Purpose. To quantify the effects of the program on WISC-V indices in children aged 6 to 8 years in an intermediate municipality in northeastern Colombia.

Results. The experimental group improved in all domains with large intra-group magnitudes: Working Memory (Δ = +4.22; d = 1.43; F(1.66) = 10.64; p = .002; partial η² = .139), Processing Speed (Δ = +4.07; d = 1.13; F(1.66) = 20.60; p < .001; partial η² = .238), Fluent Reasoning (Δ = +3.19; d = 0.92; p = .018) and Verbal Comprehension (Δ = +3.89; d = 0.91; marginal interaction, p = .059). The control showed no systematic change (|d| ≤ 0.29). Post-group differences were large in Working Memory (d = 0.93) and T-ESC (d = 1.22). The non-equivalence of baseline in Processing Speed and the impossibility of individual longitudinal matching moderate interpretation.

Conclusions. A 9-week program with cognitive demands explicitly linked to exercise produces preliminary evidence compatible with an effect of relevant magnitude on executive functions, especially Working Memory. The finding, obtained in an intermediate Colombian municipality underrepresented in the literature, supports the pedagogical viability of the active breaks format as a low-infrastructure school cognitive device.