Parenting predictors of cognitive skills and emotion knowledge in socioeconomically disadvantaged preschoolers

Two studies investigated the influence of age, language, and family background on the development of preschoolers' social cognitive skills. Study 1 examined variability in economically disadvantaged preschoolers' understanding of fantasy and evaluated the relation of age and language to children's skill in this area. Children were shown drawings of fantasy and real-life events and asked if the event could happen in real life and to justify their responses. Children were more likely to answer correctly when the drawing depicted real-life events. Age and language were positively related to children's overall understanding of fantasy. In Study 2, both low and middle SES preschoolers were included and two false belief understanding measures were added to the battery of tasks. As before, age and language were related to fantasy understanding as well as to false belief performance. In addition, SES was predictive of fantasy understanding, but not false belief performance, regardless of how it was assessed. Social competence was unrelated to the social cognitive variables, even when the effects of age, language, and SES were controlled.

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Linguistic Diversity, Multilingualism, and Cognitive Skills: A Study of Disadvantaged Children in India

Languages ◽

10.3390/languages5010010 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 10

Author(s):

Ianthi Maria Tsimpli ◽

Margreet Vogelzang ◽

Anusha Balasubramanian ◽

Theodoros Marinis ◽

Suvarna Alladi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Performance ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Linguistic Diversity ◽

Linguistically Diverse ◽

Primary School Children ◽

Growing Up ◽

Socioeconomically Disadvantaged ◽

Disadvantaged Children ◽

Diverse Environment ◽

Potential Factor

Multilingualism and linguistic diversity are the norm in India. Although studies have shown a relation between bilingualism and cognitive gains, linguistic diversity has so far been ignored as a potential factor affecting cognitive skills. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how cognitive skills—as measured by the n-back and Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices tasks—are affected by multilingualism and/or sociolinguistic diversity in a large cohort of socioeconomically disadvantaged primary school children in two urban sites of India: Delhi and Hyderabad. We present a questionnaire estimating sociolinguistic diversity and show that this measure assesses a distinct construct, as compared to a child’s multilingualism. Children were classified as growing up monolingually or bilingually, depending on whether they grew up with one or more languages in the home. Regarding cognitive performance, bilinguals were found to outperform monolinguals on the n-back task, as well as on the Raven’s task. In addition, a socially and linguistically diverse environment seems to enhance cognitive performance for children who are not multilingual themselves. Finally, several contextual factors such as city were found to influence cognitive performance. Overall, this shows that cognitive tasks are subject to contextual effects and that bilingualism and linguistic diversity can enhance cognitive performance of children in disadvantaged contexts.

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Parenting Predictors of Delay Inhibition in Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Preschoolers

Infant and Child Development ◽

10.1002/icd.1946 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 25 (5) ◽

pp. 371-390 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Emily C. Merz ◽

Susan H. Landry ◽

Tricia A. Zucker ◽

Marcia A. Barnes ◽

Michael Assel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Socioeconomically Disadvantaged ◽

Disadvantaged Preschoolers

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Go Climb a Tree (to Improve Cognitive Skills)

ASHA Leader ◽

10.1044/leader.rib2.20102015.16 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 20 (10) ◽

pp. 16-16

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Skills

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After Dismissal: Examining the Language, Literacy, and Cognitive Skills of Children With Remediated Speech Sound Disorders

Perspectives on School-Based Issues ◽

10.1044/sbi16.2.50 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 50-59 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Kelly Farquharson

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

Speech Production ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Speech Sound ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Speech Sound Disorders ◽

Academic Difficulties ◽

The Public ◽

Age Appropriate ◽

Language Literacy

Speech sound disorders are a complex and often persistent disorder in young children. For many children, therapy results in successful remediation of the errored productions as well as age-appropriate literacy and academic progress. However, for some children, while they may attain age-appropriate speech production skills, they later have academic difficulties. For SLPs in the public schools, these children present as challenging in terms of both continuing treatment as well as in terms of caseload management. What happens after dismissal? Have these children truly acquired adequate speech production skills? Do they have lingering language, literacy, and cognitive deficits? The purpose of this article is to describe the language, literacy, and cognitive features of a small group of children with remediated speech sound disorders compared to their typically developing peers.

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Re-conceptualizing Machiavellianism and Social-Cognitive Skills

Journal of Individual Differences ◽

10.1027/1614-0001/a000340 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

William Hart ◽

Christopher J. Breeden ◽

Charlotte Kinrade

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Skills ◽

Person Perception ◽

Social Cognitive ◽

Cognitive Skill ◽

Prediction Skill ◽

Current Evidence ◽

College Sample ◽

Social Prediction

Abstract. Machiavellianism is presumed to encompass advanced social-cognitive skill, but research has generally suggested that Machiavellian individuals are rather deficient in social-cognitive skill. However, previous research on the matter has been limited to measures of (a) Machiavellianism that are unidimensional and saturated with both antagonism and disinhibition and measures (b) only one type of social-cognitive skill. Using a large college sample ( N = 461), we examined how various dimensions of Machiavellianism relate to two types of social-cognitive skill: person-perception skill and general social prediction skill. Consistent with some prior theorizing, the planful dimension of Machiavellianism was positively related to both person-perception and general social prediction skills; antagonistic dimensions of Machiavellianism were negatively related to both skills; either agentic or cynical dimensions of Machiavellianism were generally unrelated to both skills. Overall, the current evidence suggests a complicated relationship between Machiavellianism and social-cognitive skill because Machiavellianism encompasses features that blend deficiency, proficiency, and average levels of social-cognitive skills.

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