The effects of mindfulness based yoga intervention on preschoolers’ self-regulation ability

Abstract

This thesis taps into one of the significant developments that has effects on children’s academic and social life; self-regulation. Children develop this ability from early childhood to middle childhood. Research has shown that this ability can be enhanced via appropriate interventions and the current study uses mindfulness based yoga as a way to enhance preschoolers’ self-regulation ability. To have a comprehensive measure of self-regulation, a child battery was developed by the researchers. This battery includes tasks that measure cognitive flexibility, interference control, working memory, motor control, and delay of gratification. In addition to this child battery, mother and teacher reported executive function (EF) scales were used. The intervention was conducted with 45 preschoolers; of these; 24 were in the yoga group and 21 were in the waitlist control group. The intervention group of children took yoga 2 times a week for 12 weeks for a total of 15 hours of yoga per child. Both in pre-test and post-test children were tested and the intervention and waitlist control groups were compared with one another. Results of the child battery has shown that children who were in the yoga group performed better on working memory but none of the other aspects of EF that were measured revealed a difference. Teachers reported no difference between the two groups. Lastly, mothers evaluated that the two groups were different in terms of positive affect such that children in the yoga group were evaluated as higher.