Socioeconomic status and executive function: developmental trajectories and mediation

AbstractBoth executive function and theory of mind impairment have been suggested as primary deficits of autism. One test of the primacy of a deficit is its persistence and stability throughout development. This longitudinal study examined development of executive function and theory of mind abilities over a 3-year time period, comparing nonretarded autistic adolescents with learning-disabled controls matched on age, IQ, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES). Results indicate that both executive function and theory of mind abilities are seriously deficient in autistic individuals, improve little with development, may never reach normal functioning levels, and appear to eventually hit a developmental ceiling. Developmental variables showed little relationship to overall task performance or improvement in either cognitive domain. The similar developmental trajectories of executive function and theory of mind performance found in this investigation suggest that these skills may be related and interdependent, rather than independent modules of cognitive function. Implications for the neurological basis of autism and intervention are also discussed.

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Funciones ejecutivas: unidad-diversidad y trayectorias del desarollo [Executive function: Unity-diversity and developmental trajectories]

Acción Psicológica ◽

10.5944/ap.11.1.13790 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 35 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Esperanza Bausela Herreras

Keyword(s):

Executive Function ◽

Developmental Trajectories

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EXPRESS: Trajectories of verbal fluency and executive functions in multilingual and monolingual children and adults: A cross-sectional study

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology ◽

10.1177/17470218211026792 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 174702182110267

Author(s):

Roberto Filippi ◽

Andrea Ceccolini ◽

Peter Bright

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Executive Function ◽

Verbal Fluency ◽

Fluid Intelligence ◽

Response Times ◽

Developmental Trajectories ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Human Cognition ◽

Lexical Retrieval ◽

Cross Sectional

The development of verbal fluency is associated with the maturation of executive function skills, such as the ability to inhibit irrelevant information, shift between tasks and hold information in working memory. Some evidence suggests that multilinguistic upbringing may underpin disadvantages in verbal fluency and lexical retrieval, but can also afford executive function advantages beyond the language system including possible beneficial effects in older age. This study examined the relationship between verbal fluency and executive function in 324 individuals across the lifespan by assessing the developmental trajectories of English monolingual and multilingual children aged 7 to 15 years (N=154) and adults from 18 to 80 years old (N=170). The childhood data indicated patterns of improvement in verbal fluency and executive function skills as a function of age. Multilingual and monolingual children had comparable developmental trajectories in all linguistic and non-linguistic measures used in the study with the exception of planning, for which monolingual children showed a steeper improvement over the studied age range relative to multilingual children. For adults, monolinguals and multilingual participants had comparable performance on all measures with the exception of non-verbal inhibitory control and response times on the Tower of London task: monolinguals showed a steeper decline associated with age. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that verbal fluency was associated with working memory and fluid intelligence in monolingual participants but not in multilinguals. These findings raise the possibility that early acquisition of an additional language may impact on the development of the functional architecture serving high-level human cognition.

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Socioeconomic status is a predictor of neurocognitive performance of early female adolescents

International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health ◽

10.1515/ijamh-2018-0024 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

H. J. Madhushanthi ◽

Savithri W. Wimalasekera ◽

C. Sampatha E. Goonewardena ◽

A. A. Thamara D. Amarasekara ◽

Janaka Lenora

Keyword(s):

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Working Memory ◽

Executive Function ◽

Inhibitory Control ◽

Parental Education ◽

Maternal Education ◽

Female Adolescents ◽

Low Ses ◽

Neurocognitive Performance ◽

Verbal Comprehension

Abstract Objective Previous studies have shown that high socioeconomic status (SES) is significantly associated with inhibitory control, working memory, verbal comprehension and IQ. However, in the Asian setting, with its prevailing poverty, information about the influence of SES on cognitive development of female adolescents is limited. This study was aimed to investigate the association between SES and neurocognitive performance of early female adolescents in Sri Lanka. Methods Female adolescents aged 11–14 years (n = 200) of low and middle SES were studied to assess neurocognitive function. After obtaining baseline data, eight subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC – IV), Test Of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI-3) and two computer-based executive function tests (inhibition and visuo-spatial working memory) were administered to assess neurocognitive measures of the above adolescents. The results were compiled into a data base and analyzed using SPSS version 20 statistical software. Results Higher SES was associated with higher performance in all neurocognitive tests. Low SES adolescents obtained significantly poor test scores for executive function test (inhibitory control: p < 0.0001) and for WISC [verbal comprehension index (VCI): p < 0.0001), working memory index (WMI): p < 0.0001 and estimated full scale IQ (EFSIQ): p < 0.0001)] when compared with middle SES adolescents. Maternal education alone significantly predicts VCI and EFSIQ than the combined influence of parental education, occupation and income. Psychosocial adversities of adolescents were inversely correlated with VCI (r = −0.30; p < 0.001) and EFSIQ (r = −0.20; p < 0.001) of WISC and mathematics performance (r = −0.34; p < 0.001) at examination in school. Conclusion Findings of the study revealed the importance of upliftment of SES of the society to improve the cognitive and academic outcomes of low SES individuals.

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Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Later Life Cognition: Evidence From the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

Journal of Aging and Health ◽

10.1177/0898264318783489 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 31 (9) ◽

pp. 1589-1615 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Emily A. Greenfield ◽

Sara M. Moorman

Keyword(s):

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Executive Function ◽

Longitudinal Study ◽

Household Income ◽

Statistical Significance ◽

Occupational Status ◽

Later Life ◽

Socioeconomic Differences ◽

Wisconsin Longitudinal Study ◽

Childhood Socioeconomic Status

Objectives:This study examined childhood socioeconomic status (SES) as a predictor of later life cognition and the extent to which midlife SES accounts for associations. Methods: Data came from 5,074 participants in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Measures from adolescence included parents’ educational attainment, father’s occupational status, and household income. Memory and language/executive function were assessed at ages 65 and 72 years. Results: Global childhood SES was a stronger predictor of baseline levels of language/executive function than baseline memory. Associations involving parents’ education were reduced in size and by statistical significance when accounting for participants’ midlife SES, whereas associations involving parental income and occupational status became statistically nonsignificant. We found no associations between childhood SES and change in cognition. Discussion: Findings contribute to growing evidence that socioeconomic differences in childhood have potential consequences for later life cognition, particularly in terms of the disparate levels of cognition with which people enter later life.

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Family Socioeconomic Status and Executive Function in Urban Chinese Children: The Effects of Cortisol Reactivity

Journal of Child and Family Studies ◽

10.1007/s10826-021-02056-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Meng Wu ◽

Zhengyan Wang ◽

Cong Cao ◽

Qiong He

Keyword(s):

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Executive Function ◽

Chinese Children ◽

Cortisol Reactivity ◽

Family Socioeconomic Status

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Maternal Language and Child Vocabulary Mediate Relations Between Socioeconomic Status and Executive Function During Early Childhood

Child Development ◽

10.1111/cdev.13065 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 90 (6) ◽

pp. 2001-2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

M. Paula Daneri ◽

Clancy Blair ◽

Laura J. Kuhn ◽

Lynne Vernon‐Feagans ◽

Mark Greenberg ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Early Childhood ◽

Executive Function ◽

Maternal Language

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Development of Hot and Cold Executive Function in Boys and Girls With ADHD

Journal of Attention Disorders ◽

10.1177/1087054714524984 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 305-315 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Erik Winther Skogli ◽

Per Normann Andersen ◽

Kjell Tore Hovik ◽

Merete Øie

Keyword(s):

Executive Function ◽

Developmental Trajectories ◽

Phenotypic Traits ◽

Adhd Group ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Test Results ◽

Children With Adhd ◽

Emotional Salience ◽

Girls With Adhd

Objective: To investigate the development of executive function with pronounced emotional salience (hot EF) and less pronounced emotional salience (cold EF) in boys and girls with ADHD relative to typically developing (TD) children. Method: Seventy-five children with ADHD and 47 TD children were assessed with hot and cold EF tests at baseline and after 2 years. Results: Despite considerable maturation, the ADHD group remained impaired on all cold EF tests relative to TD children after 2 years. There was no effect of gender on cold EF test results. Females with ADHD outperformed TD counterparts on hot EF at baseline. Females with ADHD showed deteriorating hot EF performance, while TD counterparts showed improved hot EF performance across time. Conclusion: Enduring cold EF impairments after 2 years may reflect stable phenotypic traits in children with ADHD. Results indicate divergent developmental trajectories of hot EF in girls with ADHD relative to TD counterparts.

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Word learning from context : relations with language ability, socioeconomic status, and executive function

10.32469/10355/63656 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Margaret Hill

Keyword(s):

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Working Memory ◽

Executive Function ◽

Inhibitory Control ◽

Cognitive Flexibility ◽

Word Learning ◽

Learning Process ◽

Language Ability ◽

Word Knowledge ◽

Word Meanings

During the school-age years, children learn most new word meanings from context rather than through deliberate vocabulary instruction. However, the actual process of word learning from context among schoolage children remains poorly understood. Prior research suggests that language ability and higher-order executive function skills such as working memory and inhibitory control of attention may aid children in acquiring new word meanings from context, but studies have not examined the effect of cognitive flexibility on word learning. In addition, although research has shown that children from families of low socioeconomic status (SES) often lag behind their peers from higher-SES backgrounds in vocabulary, there is no evidence to suggest that SES directly influences the word learning process itself. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of language ability, SES, and executive function on word learning from context among typically developing children. Fifty children of ages nine to 11 years completed a standardized measure of language ability and tasks of working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility along with a pretest to assess their understanding of 12 rare target words. Approximately one week later, the children read along with two short stories containing the target words while listening as the stories were narrated aloud by a computer. Posttest results showed that as a group, children made small but significant gains in knowledge of target word meanings from the stories. Analyses showed that both language ability and cognitive flexibility were related to gains in word knowledge, and that children tended to rely more on the stronger of these two skills if either language or cognitive flexibility was relatively weak. Children's SES backgrounds were not directly related to word knowledge gains, but results suggested that SES may influence the word learning process indirectly through an effect on children's cognitive flexibility.

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Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Polygenic Scores for Cognition Have Independent Associations with Cognitive Performance During Middle Childhood

10.1101/2021.08.26.21262684 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

S.E. Paul ◽

N.M. Elsayed ◽

R. Bogdan ◽

S.M.C. Colbert ◽

A.S. Hatoum ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Socioeconomic Status ◽

Executive Function ◽

Environmental Factors ◽

Educational Attainment ◽

Cognitive Performance ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

European Ancestry ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Median Income ◽

Total N

ABSTRACTChildhood cognitive abilities are heritable and influenced by malleable environmental factors such as socioeconomic status (SES). As cognition and SES share genetic architecture, it is critical to understand the extent to which SES is associated with cognition beyond genetic propensity to inform the potential benefit of SES-based interventions. Previous investigations conducted in small samples have suggested that SES is linked with cognitive ability independent of polygenic prediction for educational attainment. Here, we extend this work to a large sample (total n = 4,650) of children (ages 9-10) of genomically-confirmed European ancestry. We find that an SES composite (i.e., family income-to-needs, caregiver education, and neighborhood median income) and a polygenic cognition score composite created using genomic structural equation modeling (COG PGS; Educational Attainment, Intelligence, and Executive Function) are associated with cognitive performance indices (i.e., general ability, executive function, learning/memory, fluid intelligence) that are largely independent of one another. SES x COG PGS interactions are not associated with cognition. These findings provide further evidence for the significant role of modifiable environmental factors in the development of cognitive abilities in youth.

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