Relationship between physical fitness, motor abilities, executive functions and mental rotation in childhood (7-9 years)

There is a well-known positive effect of movement on children?s health. Recently, it has also been claimed that physical activity would contribute to cognitive skills of children. For example, research showed that physical activity improves executive functions as well as spatial abilities ((Hillman et al, 2009)). However, to fully understand the relationship between the motor and cognitive skills, there is more scientific research to be conducted. More precisely, future research should focus on investigating how specific motor abilities influence specific cognitive abilities in childhood and adolescence in different contexts. This subject-matter is quite worth of doing research about especially in the contexts such as Oman, in which children?s cognitive abilities and an improvement in teaching and learning are at the foci in both e societal and educational domains of everyday life Hence, in this study we attempt to investigate the relationship between physical fitness, motor abilities, executive functions and mental rotation using a sample consisting of 100 Omani children aged 7-9 years. The short term goal of this study is to investigate the relationship between motor development, executive functions and spatial abilities in Omani children. The long term goal is to improve cognitive performance in younger children with the help of intervention programs based on the results of the correlation analysis both in Oman and similar contexts. These intervention programs could play a vital role in improving physical and mental health of Omani children and beyond.