Middle Childhood Sport Participation Predicts Timely Long-Term Chances of Academic Success in Boys and Girls by Late Adolescence

Introduction School-aged children experience successive academic demands that increase over time. Extracurricular sport develops skills that involve physical movement, social rules, formal practice, and rational competition. This may facilitate success. Purpose Using a prospective-longitudinal birth cohort of 746 girls/721 boys, we examined prospective associations between middle childhood sport participation with subsequent indicators of academic success in adolescence. We hypothesized that persistent participation would promote long-term achievement indicators. Methods Mothers reported on whether the child participated in sporting activities with a coach/instructor from ages 6 to 10 yr. Developmental trajectories of participation were generated using longitudinal latent class analysis and then used to predict outcomes. From ages 12 to 17 yr, youth self-reported on academic indicators of success over the last 6 months. These were linearly regressed on trajectories of participation in sport, while controlling for preexisting and concurrent child/family confounds. Results Children’s sport participation from kindergarten to fourth grade predicted long-term chances of academic success in boys and girls, above and beyond individual/family confounders. Consistent participation predicted increments indicators of future success and reductions in academic failure and dropout risk through to the senior year of secondary school, ranging from 9.1% to 21.3% for girls and 11.7% to 22.9% for boys. Conclusions We provide compelling and timely evidence of long-term associations between children’s sport participation and subsequent indicators of academic success in typically developing boys and girls by late adolescence. Persistent sport involvement in sport increased educational prospects by late adolescence, potentially improving opportunities for success in emerging adulthood.