Relationships Among Activity, Motor Skill Performance and Executive Function in Preschool Children: Observational Report.

Everyone was measured at a single point in time, so the study can show that things go together but not that one thing causes the other. Only 83 of the 106 recruited children had complete data, and 23 of the missing sets were movement monitor data, which leaves less power to detect relationships. Children were aged 3 to 4 only, came from one southern US region, volunteered through their parents, and the group was mostly White, mostly urban and all from English-speaking homes, so the results may not apply elsewhere. Sleep was worked out from parents' reports of typical bed, wake and nap times rather than measured directly, which can be misremembered. The study was not preregistered. Each motor task got only one practice attempt and two scored attempts, which is a small amount of testing for this age group.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Do not read the motor skill links as proof that training movement improves a preschooler's thinking. The children were measured only once, so the study cannot tell you which comes first, and the movement behaviours it did measure, namely physical activity, sitting time and sleep, showed no relationship with the cognitive scores at all.