Socioeconomically Diverse Families Contain Multitudes: Strengths-Based Approaches to Cognitive Development

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Most developmental research has involved children from high socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds, despite this not being representative of the multitude of environments children experience in the U.S. Partially due to this bias, studies of children from lower SES contexts often frame differences in cognitive development with a deficit lens. However, deficit frameworks arbitrarily center highly advantaged contexts and limit our understanding of variation in children’s experiences. In contrast, this symposium employs strengths-based approaches to examine how SES-diverse children’s experiences support cognitive development, spanning four different domains of cognition from toddlerhood through early adolescence.
The first paper examines the language experiences of 24-month-olds living in poverty and provides evidence that mothers’ requests and play-related speech predicted toddlers’ school readiness at 36 months. The second paper explores risk and protective factors associated with the observed and parent-reported executive functioning of socioeconomically, ethnically, and racially diverse children ages 4 to 7. The third paper reveals the importance of spatial skills for children’s math learning in kindergarten, with an especially strong association among low SES children who scored highly in math. The fourth paper uses latent profile analysis, finding that a quarter of a national sample of pre-adolescents ages 9 to 11 were characterized as “cognitively resilient,” with speed/flexibility, verbal/spatial, and memory skills close to average despite the highest socioeconomic risk. Presenters implement an adaptive, context-dependent framework, emphasizing the importance of sampling the rich heterogeneity of experiences to better understand cognitive development, and propose avenues for future research.

Sub Unit

• Diversity, Equity & Social Justice

Chair

• S. Alexa McDorman, University of Maryland - College Park

Individual Presentations

• Relations Among Children’s Early Language Experiences and School Readiness - Presenting Author: Alexus Ramirez, University of Delaware; Brenna Hassinger-Das, Pace University; Kathy A Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University; Roberta M Golinkoff, University of Delaware

• Risk and Protective Factors Among Diverse Families: Does High-Quality Parenting Protect Children’s EF from Household Chaos or Low SES? - Presenting Author: S. Alexa McDorman, University of Maryland - College Park; Morgan Alayna Gilmer, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Ellie Kathleen Taylor, University of Maryland - College Park; Victoria Alexander, University of Maryland - College Park; Julia Anne Leonard, Yale University; John D.E. Gabrieli, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Rachel R. Romeo, University of Maryland - College Park

• The Correlation Between Spatial Skills and Mathematics within Socioeconomic Status (SES) - Presenting Author: Victoria Alexander, University of Maryland - College Park; Kelly Sue Mix, University of Maryland - College Park; Susan Cohen Levine, University of Chicago

• Profiles of Domain-Specific Cognitive Development in Socioeconomically Diverse Youth - Presenting Author: Deena Ahmad Shariq, University of Maryland - College Park; Rachel R. Romeo, University of Maryland - College Park; Arianna Gard, University of Maryland - College Park