2-040 - Adversity and Executive Function in Low and Middle Income Countries: Establishing Associations and Potential Pathways

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Increasingly, public health, policy, and education concerns appear to return to the question: how do people hold in mind future goals and stop themselves from immediate temptations? Moreover, are these behaviors socially patterned? If so, why? In psychology there is a history of studying this complex set of cognitions and behaviors, often termed executive function (EF). Recent studies, performed in wealthy countries, have established a link between exposure to adversity and EF. Yet little work thus far has examined this association in low and middle income countries (LMIC), where the range of exposure to adversities such as poverty, cognitive deprivation and early stress is likely to be far greater. Studies that use cognitive testing to assess EF in LMICs often focus on populations exposed to extreme conditions, such as institutionalization or malnutrition. These are important “corner-cases.” However, equally important is measuring the association between adversity and cognition across the range of exposures and settings that form the typical developmental environment around the world. To address this gap, developmental psychologists are increasingly collaborating with researchers from other social science disciplines to identify samples where links between exposure to adversity and EF can be more robustly tested. Here we present data from four such projects in Pakistan, Zambia, Peru and Liberia - examples of these exciting new collaborative efforts. Cumulatively, these projects test this association across the life span, from early childhood through emerging adulthood; they speak to a robust association and highlight potential pathways through which developmental setting influences cognition.

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Chairs

• Margaret A. Sheridan, Harvard University

• Jelena Obradovic, Stanford University

Individual Presentations

• Stimulation, Health and Cognitive Development: Identifying Mechanisms Underlying Socioeconomic Disparities in Zambia - Presenting Author: Dana Charles McCoy, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski, Florida State University; Gunther Fink, Harvard School of Public Health

• Effects of Family Context on Executive Functioning in Disadvantaged Children Living in Rural Pakistan - Presenting Author: Jelena Obradovic, Stanford University; Ximena A. Portilla, Stanford University; Muneera A Rasheed, Aga Khan University; Uzma Memon, Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan; Nicole Tirado-Strayer, Stanford University; Aisha Khizar Yousafzai, Aga Khan University

• Adversity and Cognitive Functioning Among Marginalized Youth: The Effects of Acute and Early Adversity in Liberian Males - Presenting Author: Carmel Salhi, Harvard Medical School; Christopher Blattman, Columbia University; Julian Jamison, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; Margaret A. Sheridan, Harvard University

• Early exposure to poverty and cognitive function in early adolescence, a longitudinal follow up of the Young Lives Sample in Peru. - Presenting Author: Margaret A. Sheridan, Harvard University; Amar Hamoudi, Duke University; Alan Sanchez, Group for the Analysis of Development, Peru; Sofya Krutikov, Institute for Fiscal Studies, London