Abstract
Low-socioeconomic backgrounds represent a risk factor for children’s cognitive development and well-being. Evidence from many studies highlights that cognitive processes may be adversely affected by vulnerable contexts. The aim of this study was to determine if living in vulnerable conditions affects childhood cognitive development. To achieve this, we assessed the performance of a sample of 347 Guatemalan children and adolescents aged from 6 to 17 years (M = 10.8, SD = 3) in a series of 10 neuropsychological tasks recently standardized for the pediatric population of this country. Two-fifths of the sample (41.5%) could be considered to have vulnerable backgrounds, coming from families with low-socioeconomic status or having had a high exposure to violence. As expected, results showed lower scores in language and attention for the vulnerable group. However, contrary to expectations, consistent systematic differences were not found in the executive function tasks. Vulnerable children obtained lower scores in cognitive flexibility compared to the non-vulnerable group, but higher scores in inhibition and problem-solving tasks. These results suggest the importance of developing pediatric standards of cognitive performance that take environmental vulnerable conditions into consideration. These findings, one of the first obtained in the Guatemalan population, also provide relevant information for specific educational interventions and public health policies which will enhance vulnerable children and adolescent cognitive development.
Highlights
Half of the world’s at-risk population due to multidimensional poverty are children [1].Living in vulnerable conditions affects these children’s future opportunities from very early years by lessening their developmental potential
A more recent study examined the effects of exposure to violence along with food concern on the relationship between socioeconomic characteristics and mental health indicators in children and adolescents living in vulnerable conditions in Guatemala [12]
The raw scores obtained by age group and vulnerable condition are included in the Table 5
Summary
Half of the world’s at-risk population due to multidimensional poverty are children [1].Living in vulnerable conditions affects these children’s future opportunities from very early years by lessening their developmental potential. Childhood poverty is a problem for children in developing countries. An important number of children in developed countries live with insufficient resources to guarantee their proper physical, psychological, and social development. Given the global repercussions of poverty and its associated negative consequences, the United Nations (U.N.) has initiated diverse actions to combat this problem including adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [3]. The 2030 Agenda contains 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including such objectives as eradicating poverty and hunger, and to improve the quality of education globally [4]. By proposing the involvement of governments in the implementation of these initiatives, the idea is to ensure sufficient economic and social resources are made available to fulfill those goals
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