Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Executive Function: The Role of Cognitive Stimulation in the Home Environment

• In Event: 3-169 - Socioeconomic Status, Brain, and Cognitive Development: Environmental Mechanisms and Individual Differences

Integrative Statement

Executive functions (EF), including working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility, are a set of cognitive skills involved in goal-directed behavior that are critical for adaptive functioning and academic success (Best, Miller, & Naglien, 2011). Children’s EF ability varies as a function of socioeconomic status (SES), such that children from families with greater income and parental education perform better on EF tasks than children from lower-SES families (Lawson, Hook, & Farah, 2017). SES-related disparities in academic achievement appear to be explained, at least in part, by these differences in EF (Finn et al., 2016). Although considerable research has been dedicated to understanding this association, the underlying mechanisms explaining why SES is related to EF remain poorly understood. The present study sought to identify an environmental and modifiable mechanism linking SES to children’s EF.
Many mechanistic models explaining SES-related disparities in EF have focused on aspects of early experience, such as: cognitive stimulation, parental scaffolding of child learning, parental warmth, environmental predictability, and language exposure (Carlson, 2009; Hackman et al., 2010; Sheridan & McLaughlin, 2014). Here, we directly test the hypothesis that cognitive stimulation is a mechanism explaining the association between SES and EF.
The sample included 101 60-75 month old children. We used direct observation of the children and parents in home interactions to assess cognitive stimulation in the home. SES was assessed using both parental education and the income-to-needs ratio. Children performed three behavioral EF tasks to assess working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility.
Our overarching goal was to examine the role of cognitive stimulation as a mechanism linking childhood SES with EF. Thus, we first tested each of the paths of a standard mediation model. We found that income-to-needs and parent educational attainment were associated with working memory performance, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility (all βs > .29, ps <.01; Figure 1). Additionally, there was a strong positive association between both income-to-needs and parental education with cognitive stimulation (βs > .5, ps <.001). Moreover, cognitive stimulation was positively associated with all three measures of EF (all βs > .32, ps <.001; Figure 2). Finally, we conducted mediation analyses to determine whether the degree of cognitive stimulation mediated the association between family SES and EF. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found a significant indirect effect of income-to-needs and parental education on all measures of EF through cognitive stimulation. Between 19-54% of the association of SES and EF was explained through cognitive stimulation. We examined two additional potential mediators linking SES and EF: parental warmth and environmental predictability. Neither were associated with EF nor mediated of the association between SES and EF.
EF may be a key mechanism underlying SES-related disparities in achievement, because EF is strongly related to children’s academic performance (Coldren, 2013). The findings from the present study indicate that cognitive stimulation in the home is, in turn a candidate mechanism explaining SES-related differences in EF. Therefore, differences in early cognitive stimulation—a factor that is highly modifiable—may be a desirable target for interventions designed to help ameliorate the income-achievement gap.

Authors

• Maya Rosen, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• McKenzie Hagen, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zoe E. Miles, Universtiy of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Margaret Sheridan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andrew Meltzoff, University of Washington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katie McLaughlin, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author