(PS9-71) The Effects of Community-Focused Tennis Programming on Executive Functioning in Adolescents

Abstract Text: Executive Functioning (EF) refers to complex cognitive processes implicated in active control over thought, action, and emotion. Presented with environmental uncertainty, effective EF skills can override automated processes and responses and facilitate heightened inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. EF further informs the development of language skills through self-directed speech, thought monitoring, and verbal communication. Overall, EF is integral for deliberate learning, intentional action, emotion regulation, and social functioning.

EF development during adolescence is sensitive to chronic stressors and adverse childhood experiences, and individual differences may be associated with academic performance, physical health, socioeconomic status (SES), substance abuse, and engagement with the criminal justice system. In addition, EF deficits are transdiagnostic risk factors for many adolescent psychological disorders while existing interventions may be relegated to inaccessible or undesirable healthcare arenas for families from underserved communities.

Evidence suggests that sports can improve EF skills in adolescents. In particular, aerobic, open skill sports that require a player to react to a dynamic, unpredictable, and externally paced environment with complex sequences of motor movements have been associated with improvements in EF. Tennis has been considered one of those open skill sports, and researchers have reported positive effects of tennis on EF development in adolescents; however, this has primarily been examined in academic or junior tennis club and academy settings. What is lacking, however, is research that focuses on using tennis to develop these skills in youth from underserved communities who may be at risk for mental health issues.

Utilizing a community-based participatory approach, the student researcher has formed a partnership with a non-profit organization that provides free tennis and educational opportunities to adolescents living in and around public housing in Brooklyn, New York. This study will examine the effects of this community-focused tennis programming on EF skill development and clinically significant expressions of EF in 30 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 who are enrolled in weekly tennis training sessions throughout the course of a 12 week tennis season. EF will be operationalized as performance on assessments and clinical rating scales. Improvements in performance EF skills and decreases in caregiver and self-report ratings of clinical EF are hypothesized to occur post-session when compared to pre-session.

Sports may take advantage of the transdiagnostic utility of EF and its malleability during development while circumventing systemic barriers to mental health care access. These efforts seek to offer new insights into how to support existing community athletic services by tailoring programs to address mental health and best meet the needs of adolescents from underserved communities.