Children’s Attention Performance in Running (Closed) and Racket (Open) Sports

Purpose: First, to investigate the influence of different sport training experiences (open skill sport – racket and closed skill sport – running) on attentional performance of preadolescent children (8–13 years of age). Second, to investigate the acute effects of an open or a closed skill training session on children’s immediate and delayed attention. Methods: Thirty-six children divided in two groups of training ses- sion (open skill sport session – racket and closed skill sport session – running) were involved. Children’s attentional capacity before, immediately after and 50 minutes after each own specific training session were measured, using the d2-R test of attention. Results: Children’s attention scores were higher when engaged in open skill sport training than in closed skill sport training. Children of open skill sport significantly improved their concentration perfor- mance (CP) (143.64 ± 5.89 vs 172.23 ± 8.90 vs 178.71 ± 8.31; p B 0.01) and decreased the percentage of errors (E%) (7.70 ± 1.04 vs 3.65 ± 1.40 vs 3.84 ± 1.29; p B 0.01) across the time, while children of closed skill sport significantly worsened their CP (88.47 ± 5.85 vs 98.35 ± 8.83 vs 64.70 ± 8.25; p B 0.001 vs 50’ post) and E% (14.47 ± 1.03 vs 14.31 ± 1.39 vs 23.67 ± 1.28; p B 0.001 vs 50’ post) across the time. Finally, only boys of open skill sport significantly improved their E% across the time. Conclusions: Open skill sport experience positively affects children’s attentional performance. Specifically, attentional performance sig- nificantly improved only in children involved open skill training session, when compared to closed skill training session.