showing 8 related works from this author
Sports, Executive Functions and Academic Performance: A Comparison between Martial Arts, Team Sports, and Sedentary Children
2021
It is well known that curricular physical activity benefits children’s executive functions and academic performance. Therefore, this study aimed to determine whether there is an influence of extracurricular sports on executive functions and academic performance. However, it is less known which specific types of the sport better enhance executive functions in children
A saturated strategy robustly ensures stability of the cooperative equilibrium for Prisoner's dilemma
2016
We study diffusion of cooperation in a two-population game in continuous time. At each instant, the game involves two random individuals, one from each population. The game has the structure of a Prisoner's dilemma where each player can choose either to cooperate (c) or to defect (d), and is reframed within the field of approachability in two-player repeated game with vector payoffs. We turn the game into a dynamical system, which is positive, and propose a saturated strategy that ensures local asymptotic stability of the equilibrium (c, c) for any possible choice of the payoff matrix. We show that there exists a rectangle, in the space of payoffs, which is positively invariant for the syst…
The Switch to Online Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Interplay between Personality and Mental Health on University Students
2023
The switching from traditional to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic was challenging for students, determining an increase in physical and mental health problems. The current paper applied a two-step cluster analysis in a large sample of n = 1028 university students (Mage = 21.10 years, SD = 2.45 years; range: 18–30 years; 78.4% females). Participants responded to an online survey exploring neuroticism, trait/state anxiety, general self-efficacy, academic motivation, fear of COVID-19, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on physical and mental health, and the help requests. Results showed two significant clusters of students having a Maladaptive Academic Profile (n = 456; 44.4%) or…
Maternal Competence, Maternal Burnout and Personality Traits in Italian Mothers after the First COVID-19 Lockdown
2022
This study aimed to investigate the maternal sense of competence and maternal burnout in Italian mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample was composed of 278 mothers of children/adolescents aged 4 to 17 years old. Participants were recruited after the end of the first spring total Italian lockdown (June–October 2020) through online advertisements on websites and social media. We hypothesized a model in which a specific personality trait, such as neuroticism, affected maternal competence by the mediating role of maternal burnout. Results showed that neuroticism was directly and negatively predictive of perception of maternal competence, and it was negatively associated with maternal …
Effects of the Enriched Sports Activities-Program on Executive Functions in Italian Children.
2020
Physical activity (PA) during childhood plays an important role in brain development. This role is played in both the structural domain, prefrontal cortex area, and in the functional domain, involving the higher cognitive functions, including the executive functions (EF). Working memory (WM), inhibition, and switching as fundamental EF were investigated in an Italian children sample before and after four months of an Enriched Sports Activities-Program (ESA-Program). EFs were assessed at pre-test and post-test using, respectively, the digit span test, the color word Stroop test, and the trail making test derived from Millisecond Software. The Italian sample was composed of 141 children aged …
Does Physical Activity Improve Inhibition in Kindergarteners? A Pilot Study
2022
Substantial empirical evidence supports the positive effects of physical activity (PA) on executive functions, but not all forms of physical activity benefit equally. Among kindergarteners, cognitively-engaging exercise seems to more strongly effect EF than simple exercise. We aimed to investigate several qualitatively different exercise formats on kindergarteners' inhibition. Participants were 75 children (M age = 68.1 months), recruited from 14 classrooms of three kindergarten schools. They were randomly assigned to three groups: control group, free play group (non-cognitively-engaging PA), and an intervention group (cognitively-engaging PA). The intervention group performed 18 sessions …
The Psychological Impact of Online Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic. A Survey on a Sample of Italian Undergraduates
2023
The COVID-19 pandemic created a risk to all educational system levels, ranging from primary to university grades, due to social restriction measures of isolation worldwide. Switching from the traditional educational system to Online Learning (OL) was challenging for many undergraduates due to the lack of Internet connectivity or digital devices and a suitable home study environment. Therefore, a survey study on a sample of 1069 undergraduates (78.5% female; Mage = 21.72; SD = 4.05) investigated the interrelation among psychological skills for managing learning habits and strategies, academic achievement, social interaction, and mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic was perform…
Parental Resources in Parents of Children with Special Needs (SNs) at the Time of COVID-19
2023
Background. The limitations imposed by governments for containing the spread of COVID-19 have affected familial relationships, especially those of families dealing with children with special needs or chronic illness conditions. The current study aims to better understand what pathological/disability condition has impacted parental resources, sense of competence, and perception of children’s executive functioning the most. Methods. A sample of 648 parents was asked to answer a survey assessing children’s condition (typical development, specific learning disorder, autism spectrum syndrome, chronic illness), parental resources, parenting sense of competence (distinguished into pare…