Physical activity boosts mental health in young people with neurodevelopmental disorders

In children and adolescents with different types of neurodevelopmental disorders, physical activity interventions exert beneficial effects on mental health, including cognitive function, psychological well-being, internalizing, and externalizing problems, according to the results of a meta-analysis.

For the study, researchers searched multiple online databases for randomized clinical trials or nonrandomized studies wherein physical activity interventions were evaluated in relation to mental health outcomes in paediatric populations aged 5 to 17 years with neurodevelopmental disorders.

The main mental health-related outcomes such as cognitive function, psychological well-being, internalizing, or externalizing problems were assessed using neurocognitive tasks or subjective questionnaires. Random multilevel meta-analysis was performed, with multiple reviewers performing data extraction and risk-of-bias assessment.

The systematic review included 76 studies involving 3,007 participants with neurodevelopmental disorders, of which 59 studies were used for meta-analysis. Neurodevelopmental disorders included attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, developmental coordination disorder, intellectual disability, and learning disorder. The interventions evaluated across the studies were cognitively engaging exercise, aerobic exercise, combination of aerobic exercise and cognitively engaging exercise.

Pooled data showed that physical activity interventions were associated with significant, favourable changes in overall mental health (g, 0.67, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.50–0.85), cognitive function (g, 0.74, 95 percent CI, 0.53–0.95), psychological well-being (g, 0.56, 95 percent CI, 0.16–0.96), internalizing (g, 0.72, 95 percent CI, 0.34–1.10), and externalizing problems (g, 0.58, 95 percent CI, 0.28–0.89).

The effect of the interventions on mental health outcomes were influenced by factors such as frequency, total sessions, total duration, session duration, and physical activity type. Meanwhile, the type of neurodevelopmental disorder did not modify the associations between physical activity and mental health outcomes.