Autonomy as key to healthy psychological well-being: A systematic literature review on children's independent mobility, cognitive and socio-emotional development

Background: Children’s independent mobility (CIM), i.e., the autonomous travel and outdoor play without adult supervision, is crucial for child development. The literature on CIM has focused more on its predictors than its outcomes, and few existing reviews have primarily explored its contribution to children’s physical well-being. The aim of this review is to analyze studies on the relation between CIM, particularly in (sub)urban neighborhoods, and children’s psychological well-being variables. Methods: A literature search run in nine electronic databases resulted in the selection of a final sample of 23 studies, out of 358 initial relevant hits. Peer-reviewed articles addressing at least one child psychological outcome of CIM, referring to (sub)urban residential areas, and considering children and adolescents from school-age throughout adolescence, were analysed. Results: The reviewed studies, published between 1999 and 2020, were mainly conducted in Europe and by quantitative design, and most of them focused on the consequences of CIM for children and adolescents up to 15 years old. Findings suggest a prevalence of studies exploring CIM’s benefits for their socio-emotional (e.g., lower fear of crime, enhanced sociability) followed by cognitive (e.g., better spatial knowledge) development. Conclusions: Empirical studies on psychosocial outcomes of CIM are lacking, possibly due to the decline of this activity among children and youth also related to generalised lockdown affecting those specially in (sub)urban neighbourhoods. Moreover, this review shows that psychological benefits of CIM for children have been under looked in the literature and highlights that children’s cognitive abilities (ex. spatial cognition) and socio-emotional growth (ex. social interaction skills) may be enhanced through this activity, emphasising the need for more empirical research on this topic.