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FIGURE 4-3
Change in academic scores from baseline after physically active classroom les-
sons in elementary schools in northeast Kansas (2003-2006).
NOTE: All differences between the Physical Activity Across the Curriculum (PAAC) group (
N
= 
117) and control group (
N
= 86) were significant (
p
<.01). 
SOURCE: Donnelly et al., 2009. Reprinted with permission.
Figure 4-3.eps
–4
–2
0
2
4
6
10
8
Composite
Reading
Math
Spelling
Change in Academic Score
PAAC
Control
two cognitive tasks—a flanker task to assess attention and inhibition and 
a spatial nback task to assess working memory—before, during, and after 
seated rest and treadmill walking conditions. The children sat or walked 
on different days for an average of 19 minutes. The results suggest that the 
physical activity enhanced cognitive performance for the attention task but 
not for the task requiring working memory. Accordingly, although more 
research is needed, the authors suggest that the acute effects of exercise may 
be selective to certain cognitive processes (i.e., attentional inhibition) while 
unrelated to others (e.g., working memory). Indeed, data collected using a 
task-switching paradigm (i.e., a task designed to assess multitasking and 
requiring the scheduling of attention to multiple aspects of the environ-
ment) among 69 overweight and inactive children did not show differences 
in cognitive performance following acute bouts of treadmill walking or sit-
ting (Tomporowski et al., 2008b). Thus, findings to date indicate a robust 
relationship of acute exercise to transient improvements in attention but 
appear inconsistent for other aspects of cognition.