Associations of activity, sedentary, and sleep behaviors with cognitive and social-emotional health in early childhood

Background Early childhood is important for cognitive and social-emotional development, and a time in which to promote healthy movement behaviors (sedentary behavior, physical activity, and sleep). Movement behaviors may have interactive infuences on cognition and social-emotional factors in young children, but most previous research has explored them independently. The purpose of this study was to determine if movement behaviors are associated with measures of cognitive and social-emotional health in young children and if so, to describe optimal compositions of movement behaviors of a daily cycle for such outcomes. Methods Children (n=388, 33 to 70 months, 44.6% female) from a clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03285880, first posted September 18, 2017) wore accelerometers on their wrists for 24-h for 9.56±3.3 days. Movement behavior compositions consisted of time spent in sedentary behaviors, light intensity physical activity, moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA), and sleep. Outcomes were cognitive (receptive vocabulary, declarative and procedural memory, and executive attention) and social-emotional measures (temperament and behavioral problems). Compositional linear regression models with isometric log ratios were used to investigate the relations between the movement behavior composition and the cognitive and social-emotional health measures. If a signifcant associa‑ tion was found between the composition and an outcome, we further explored the “optimal” 24-h time-use for said outcome. Results Movement behavior compositions were associated with receptive vocabulary. The composition associated with the predicted top fve percent of vocabulary scores consisted of 12.1 h of sleep, 4.7 h of sedentary time, 5.6 h of light physical activity, and 1.7 h of MVPA. Conclusions While behavior compositions are related to vocabulary ability in early childhood, our fndings align with the inconclusiveness of the current evidence regarding other developmental outcomes. Future research exploring activities within these four movement behaviors, that are meaningful to cognitive and social-emotional development, may be warranted