The effectiveness of an intervention promoting physical activity in elementary school children

Regular physical activity (PA) is an important component of a healthfully lifestyle in children and adolescents. While children are more active than adults, a substantial proportion of young people have lower activity levels than those desirable for good health. Furthermore, it is well documented that PA levels decline from childhood to adulthood and tracking studies have revealed that low levels of PA remain stable from adolescence into adulthood. Therefore, the promotion of lifelong PA among youth should be emphasized at an early age. The school environment is an ideal setting for the promotion of PA, since all children can be reached. Schools can provide opportunities to engage in PA during physical education (PE) classes, during recess periods and after school hours. Additionally, schools can teach the children behavioral skills necessary to develop and maintain an active lifestyle. The main purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive PA promotion intervention in elementary school children. Furthermore, the effectiveness of some of the intervention components was evaluated. Sixteen elementary schools participated in the intervention study. They were randomly assigned to the intervention (n = 8) and control condition (n = 8). The intervention included a health-related PE program, classroom-based health-education lessons and an extracurricular PA promotion program. However, before avaluating the intervention, the validity of a questionnaire measuring children’s usual PA was evaluated in a preliminary study. The results indicated that the questionnaire, completed with parental assistance, is useful to measure children’s usual PA levels. The evaluations of the intervention study revealed that the comprehensive PA promotion intervention was effective in promoting PA in elementary school children. The intervention was successful in preventing the age-related decline in children’s total PA participation. Moreover, the intervention was successful in promoting PA both at school and in leisure time. Children in the intervention condition reported more moderate intensity activity in leisure time than the controls. Moreover, the health-related PE program was found to be promising in promoting PA during PE classes. Furthermore, providing game equipment during recess periods was effective in increasing children’s activity levels during those periods. However, no intervention effects were found on children’s physical fitness and psychosocial correlates of PA. A strong point of the intervention was the integration of several school environmental factors to promote lifelong PA, including PE classes, healtheducation classes, recess periods and extracurricular activities. Furthermore, the intervention was not expensive and most components could be implemented within the existing school programs by the schools themselves. Therefore, implementation of the intervention in elementary schools needs to be encouraged

A and O as each other's mirror image? Problems with markedness reversal

This article provides a critical examination of the widespread idea that A and O (and Agents and Patients) are each other's mirror image in terms of case marking and semantic features. We examine patterns of differential case marking for nouns in a sample of 185 languages, showing that the behaviour of A cannot be captured in terms of markedness reversal based on models for O marking. We highlight pecularities of A marking that are not found with O marking, like sensitivity to the feature of motivity, and syntactic restrictions on use as A, and use these to develop an independent account of A marking.status: publishe

Distinguishing Animacy Effects for Agents: A Case Study of Australian Languages

This study investigates construction-level effects of animacy for Agents in a set of Australian languages. It is shown that the presence of an inanimate Agent can not only affect the marking of the Agent, but also the marking of the verb and of the Undergoer. On the basis of a detailed study of the extent of these effects in specific languages, it is shown that they are not always directly related to animacy, but can also be related to factors that are typically but not exclusively associated with animacy, like unusual instigation and unusual affectedness. It is also shown that there is a correlation between the part of the construction that is affected, and the type of motivation. Special marking of the Agent tends to be a direct animacy effect, while special marking of verbal transitivity is an effect of unusual instigation, and special marking of the Undergoer is an effect of unusual affectedness. © 2010 The Australian Linguistic Society.status: publishe

Perceptions of a School-Based Self-Management Program Promoting an Active Lifestyle Among Elementary Schoolchildren, Teachers, and Parents

The present study aimed to investigate how classroom-based self-management lessons to promote physical activity were perceived by students, teachers, and parents. The self-management lessons were implemented by an external physical education specialist in 20 class groups at eight elementary schools. Program perceptions were evaluated in 412 children (mean age 9.7 +/- 0.7) using a short questionnaire. Oral surveys were used with 20 teachers and 50 parent participants. Most children were enthusiastic about the program and more than half of them reported being more active. Teachers and parents also perceived the lessons as useful and half of them reported an improvement in children's physical activity awareness. Eighty percent of the teachers and 32% of the parents perceived an increase in children's physical activity levels. The SPARK self-management physical activity program appears to promote an active lifestyle in children and was positively received; the implementation of the program by the teachers needs further evaluation