Abstract
Organized sport is being offered to children at increasingly younger ages, with many programs now geared towards preschoolers, toddlers, and even infants (AAP, 2001). While sport is promoted as an amendable context to advance the healthy development of school-age children (Côté & Fraser-Thomas, 2016; Holt et al., 2017), little is empirically known about the potential benefits or risks associated with organized sport participation in early childhood. A systematic review of nine electronic databases was conducted to identify English-language, peer-reviewed, original research articles which address psychological, social, and cognitive developmental outcomes of organized sport involvement of children between 2 and 5 years of age. Studies included in the review were appraised for quality. Results suggest only limited research has been conducted in this area, with all study designs including parent or teacher proxy-report or assessment. Findings of these studies offer some evidence that early sport participation is related to positive outcomes such as self-regulation, pro-social behavior, social cooperation, and classroom engagement. This review reinforces the notion that little is known about preschooler organized sport participation as a distinct form of physical activity, despite the pervasive availability of preschooler organized sport programming, and positive parental perceptions of early sport enrollment (Nonis, 2015). Additional research with stronger methodological design and rigor is needed; it is suggested that a greater understanding of this context could be gleaned through interview and observational data collection techniques. Further recommendations to enhance the quality of future studies with young children in sport are discussed.Acknowledgments: This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under Grant #435-2016-1630