Associations Between Socio-Economic Status and Executive Function in the SCAMP Cohort of UK Adolescents

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Attention, Learning, Memory

Abstract

Socio-economic status (SES) can be defined as the access a person has to financial, social and other resources. SES in childhood predicts academic, health and career outcomes in later life, and is associated with cognitive ability. Childhood SES may be estimated in various ways, including household income, parental occupational status, or deprivation level of their residential area. Different measures of SES have been found to differentially associate with specific life outcomes.

Executive function (EF) abilities are one aspect of cognition that is correlated with SES. The precise nature of the relationship between SES and EF is not fully understood. While observed associations may be due in part to shared variance with fluid intelligence, there may also be specific associations between particular aspects of SES and specific EFs, such as working memory or cognitive flexibility. This study aimed to investigate the specific pattern of associations between SES and EF in early adolescence; whether these associations exist over and above associations with fluid intelligence; and which measures of SES most strongly predict specific EF measures.

Data were collected within the Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones (SCAMP) from 6,616 pupils aged 11-12 years, attending 39 secondary schools across the Greater London area in the UK. Participants completed a computerised battery of cognitive tests (Backward Digit Span, Trail Making, Spatial Working Memory, Corsi Span Forward, Continuous Performance, Cattell’s Culture Fair), and questionnaires including SES assessments (parental occupation, parental education, postcode, school type). Highest parental occupation was classified as eight standard categories, parental education as attended university or not, postcode deprivation as sample-adjusted quintiles, and school type as state or independent school. Multiple regression analyses investigated the extent to which the SES measures predicted performance of the EF tasks, over and beyond first age and gender and then fluid intelligence.

The SES measures combined were significant predictors of EF measures, over and beyond age and gender. When performance on the Cattell Culture Fair test of fluid intelligence was entered into the model, combined SES remained a significant predictor, and the unique variance explained by the SES measures reduced by around half. Of our specific SES measures, school type was the strongest predictor of EF scores and predicted all EF measures, with better performance observed in adolescents attending independent than state schools. Parental occupation was a significant predictor of scores in two working memory tests (Corsi and Spatial Working Memory) and of strategy use in the Spatial Working Memory test. Postcode deprivation predicted variance in switching ability (Trail Making) and Spatial Working Memory score.

Higher SES was found to be associated with better performance on a range of EF measures. The strength of these associations was approximately halved when individual differences in fluid intelligence were taken into account, but remained significant, suggesting potentially specific influences of SES on EF skills. Of the SES measures considered, school type was the strongest predictor of executive functions. Different aspects of SES appear to be differentially related to specific aspects of cognitive ability.

Authors

• Elizabeth Booth, Birkbeck, University of London
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michael Thomas, Birkbeck, University of London
  Non-Presenting Author

• Martin Röösli, Swiss TPH
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paul Elliott, Imperial College London
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mireille B. Toledano, Imperial College London
  Non-Presenting Author

• Iroise Dumontheil, Birkbeck University of London
  Presenting Author