Culture-free assessment of Working Memory in children

Abstract

Introduction: The study of child brain development and its environmental determinants and risk factors is a high priority in global health. Although several tools are available to measure child neuropsychological development, there is a lack of tools free of costs for non-western cultures. Working memory is a very good proxy of global neuropsychological development. The present project aims to develop and validate a short culture-free working memory battery to be used in epidemiological studies in children from different geographical/cultural areas. As a first step, we explored the relationship between socioeconomic characteristics and working memory performance in three Spanish regions. Methods: We carried out a pilot study in children at 6-8 years old (n=1,111) from Gipuzkoa, Valencia and Sabadell (Spain). Children were assessed using computerized numerical n-back task. The task included two different levels of difficulty (2- and 3-back). For each level, we obtained d’ score, a signal detection measure where higher values indicate better performance of the test. Information on socioeconomic characteristics was collected using questionnaires answered by the mothers. Results: We observed positive trends in both 2- and 3-back by maternal education level. Mean 2-back d’ differed from 1.62 in low to 2.47 in high maternal education level in Gipuzkoa. In Valencia, 2-back was more homogeneous by maternal education levels, but still significant. In Sabadell, we found differences in 3-back. The same pattern was observed with paternal education in 2- and 3-back, although only significant in Sabadell. Conclusions: The n-back task was a sensitive instrument to socioeconomic characteristics of Spanish children and feasible for being applied in epidemiological studies. Next steps will be the completion of the working memory battery including spatial n-back task, Corsi block-tapping task, and dot matrix task, as well as the validation of the battery in Mozambican children.