Effects of Mindfulness and Yoga on Preschool Students' Emotional Regulation, Behavior, and Social Participation

Not Applicable

Not yet recruiting

• Conditions: Impulsive Behavior; Prosocial Behavior; Self Regulation
• Interventions: Behavioral: Calm & Alert yoga and mindfulness

• Registration Number: NCT06561373
• Lead Sponsor: Elizabethtown College

Brief Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if mindfulness and yoga can improve attention, problem-solving, memory, emotional awareness, and impulsivity in preschoolers. The main questions it aims to answer are:

Can a 30-minute, once-a-week mindfulness and yoga program (Calm \& Alert) over seven weeks in preschool classrooms increase emotional regulation during the school day? Can a 30-minute, once-a-week mindfulness and yoga program decrease negative behavioral incidences during the school day? Can a 30-minute, once-a-week mindfulness and yoga program increase prosocial behaviors like caring, sharing, and perspective-taking during the school day? Researchers will compare the effects of students who participated in the mindfulness and yoga program to students in classrooms who did not receive the program. Student participants will be asked to complete a short self-regulation task test before and after the mindfulness program. Teachers will rate the students on their prosocial behavior before and after the mindfulness program and record negative behavioral incidents over the study period.

Detailed Description

The current study design is a quasi-experimental pretest post-study design with a control group. Three schools with a total of four preschool classrooms will participate in this study. Overall, the present research study aims to add to the knowledge base of the benefits of mindfulness and yoga in schools for young children. This will include investigating the effect of mindfulness on children's attention, problem-solving, memory, emotional awareness, and impulsivity. For seven weeks, the intervention group will receive the Calm \& Alert mindfulness intervention alongside the rest of their class involving one session per week of about 30 minutes of yoga and mindfulness. The control group will conduct business as usual and receive the yoga and mindfulness intervention after the study concludes. The intervention will be provided by the principal investigator who is a certified mindfulness-informed professional and registered yoga teacher - 200 hours. It is hypothesized that implementing a 30-minute, once-a-week mindfulness program over seven weeks in preschool classrooms will increase emotional regulation, decrease negative behavioral incidents, and increase prosocial behaviors during the school day.

Study Timeline

• Status Verified: 2024-08
• Study First Submitted: 2024-08-16
• Study First Submitted QC: 2024-08-16
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-08-16
• Study First Posted: 2024-08-20
• Last Update Posted: 2024-08-20
• Study Start: 2024-08-23
• Primary Completion: 2024-11-11
• Study Completion: 2024-11-11

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 40

Inclusion Criteria

• are preschoolers with a filled out and returned parental/caregiver consent form who fall within the four to six-year-old age range, stay within a similar developmental age range, and attend five out of the seven sessions.

Exclusion Criteria

preschoolers without a parental/caregiver consent form, above or below the four to six-year age range will not be included in the study because of the higher variation in developmental capabilities, and if they do not attend five out of the seven sessions.

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Calm and Alert Mindfulness and Yoga Intervention	Calm & Alert yoga and mindfulness	The Calm \& Alert intervention uses mind, body, and breath to foster resiliency and self-regulation in students. This mindfulness-based intervention, which also incorporates yoga movements, aims to develop skills in self-awareness, self-regulation, safety, focus, attention, active listening, following directions, respect, and positive thinking (McGlauflin, 2018). The program consisted of seven lessons lasting approximately 20-30 minutes, each conducted once a week over seven consecutive weeks.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire	Pre-intervention and post-intervention (within one week)	The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire - Teacher Form (SDQ) is a widely used behavioral screening questionnaire that correlates highly with measures of behavior problems (Goodman \& Scott, 1999). The teacher form asks teachers to rate classroom students according to their perceived behavior. It consists of 25 items divided into five scales: emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, peer relationship problems, and prosocial behavior. For this study, the prosocial behavior subscale will be primarily used for pre- and post-assessment data analysis. The teacher form asks teachers to rate classroom students according to their perceived behavior.
Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders Task	Pre-intervention and post-intervention (within one week for post and before the start of the study period for pretest)	The Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) Task is an ecologically valid method to measure behavioral aspects of self-regulation, such as controlling and directing actions, inhibitory control, paying attention, and recalling instructions (Ponitz, 2008; McClelland and Cameron, 2012). The test is introduced as a game with a gross motor component that more closely aligns with self-regulation behaviors required of children within natural contexts such as the classroom (McClelland and Cameron, 2012).

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Negative Behavior Incidents	during the intervention period.	School teachers will track behavioral incidents that fall outside the expected behavior realm for student participants.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Elizabethtown College; 🇺🇸 Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, United States