Socioeconomic Risk and School Readiness: Social Competence Mediates Effects of Neighborhood Safety on Executive Functions

• In Event: 3-072 - Social, Cognitive, Communicative, and Motivational Predictors of School Readiness and Achievement: Infancy to Childhood

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Children living in poverty face a multitude of risks which can impact the acquisition of core cognitive and social-emotional skills that are central to school readiness (Blair & Razza, 2007; Hughes, Ensor, Wilson, & Graham, 2010; Raver, Blair, & Willoughby, 2013). Many studies have provided evidence that both executive functions (EF) and social competence serve as potential mechanisms by which exposure to multiple poverty-related risks can influence school readiness and academic outcomes. However, because prior research has focused largely on aggregate measures of poverty-related risk and their relations to child outcomes, it is less well understood how specific risk factors relate to different aspects of children’s cognitive development. The purpose of the present analysis was to determine which components of socioeconomic risk contributed to EF outcomes over and above other factors related to the parent and child.

Method: Data come from the Family Life Project (Vernon-Feagans, Cox, et al., 2013), a prospective longitudinal study of 1,292 children followed from birth in primarily low-income, non-urban counties. Building on previous work with these data (Perry, Braren, & Blair, 2018), we examined EF skills at 58 months of age and social competence in Kindergarten (K) as potential mediational pathways by which early-life risk factors influence EF at grade 1 (G1). Families were visited in their home and participated in a variety of tasks including a semi-structured parent-infant interaction at child ages 6, 15, 24, and 36 months, and direct assessments of child EF at 58 months and G1. Primary caregivers also reported socioeconomic and demographic information from which we derived seven poverty-related risk variables: family income-to-needs ratio, household density, neighborhood safety, maternal education, consistent partnership, maximum work hours per week, and job prestige. Social competence data were collected at the K and G1 school visits via teacher completed questionnaires. Using a multiple mediator model we tested the hypothesis that EF at 58 months and social competence at K would independently mediate the cumulative effects of risk and parenting (from 6 to 36 months of age) on EF at G1.

Results: As shown in Table 1b and Figure 1b, results revealed that social competence at K completely mediated the effects of neighborhood safety on EF at G1 (β=.021, SE=.010, 95% CI [.004, .043]). Conversely, EF at 58 months completely mediated the effects of sensitive parenting on EF at G1 (β=.082, SE=.036, 95% CI [.018, .163]). Importantly, these effects were observed while controlling for earlier measures of social competence and EF as well as relevant covariates, including child age, gender, and ethnicity.

Discussion: These findings identify a novel path for improving EF outcomes in early childhood by targeting earlier social competence and neighborhood quality. Furthermore, these findings emphasize the relevance of environmental, neighborhood-level characteristics, in addition to individual, person-level characteristics to the development of EF. Finally, this study highlights the importance of examining both aggregate and individual risk factors to better disentangle the relative and interactive contributions of risk factors to child outcomes and developmental processes.

Group Authors

Neuroscience and Education Laboratory, Institute of Human Development and Social Change, Department of Applied Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Authors

• Stephen H. Braren, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Rosemarie E. Perry, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Clancy Blair, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author