Mediating role of poverty in the association between environmental factors and cognitive performance in preschoolers

Carolina Fracchia,María Julia Hermida,Lucía Prats,María Soledad Segretin,Sebastián J Lipina

doi:10.32348/1852.4206.v12.n2.26482

Carolina Fracchia, María Julia Hermida + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.32348/1852.4206.v12.n2.26482

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Abstract

TThe association between environmental factors and cognitive performance during childhood could be mediated by poverty (i.e., households with Unsatisfied or Satisfied Basic Needs). This study explored such mediating roles in preschoolers from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Tasks to assess executive attention, working memory, inhibitory control, planning, and fluid reasoning were administered to 250 children aged 4 and 5 years. The results suggested that poverty mediated the effects of family composition, child health, health risk factors, children and adults at home, maternal age, and literacy activities on the performance of executive attention, fluid reasoning, and inhibitory control. These results contribute to our understanding of the relationship between environmental factors and cognitive development through the identification of the mediating role of poverty.

Highlights

Various studies have introduced environmental factors as mediators of poverty effects on cognition (Blair et al, 2011; Noble, McCandliss, & Farah, 2007), less is known about the opposite relationship: how poverty mediates the effects of environmental factors on cognition (Ronfani et al, 2015). In such a context of analysis, we focused on self-regulation processes
We focused on preschool children because the early development of these cognitive processes could be susceptible to environmental influences, such as home and school experiences (Lipina et al, 2013; Rao et al, 2010; Ursache, Blair, & Raver, 2012; VernonFeagans, Willoughby, & Garrett-Peters, 2016)
Out hypotheses were as follows: (1) poverty will mediate the associations between attention, inhibitory control, working memory, planning, and fluid reasoning and specific environmental factors (e.g., Ronfani et al, 2015); (2) different patterns of mediation will be identified based on cognitive processes and environmental factors (Hackman, Gallop, Evans, & Farah, 2015; Lawson et al, 2014; Lipina et al, 2013); and (3) cognitive differences will be based on socioeconomic disparities (Fracchia et al, 2016; Segretin et al, 2014, 2016)

Summary

Introduction

To answer these questions, the present study proposed to analyze poor homes (in terms of UBN or SBN) as a mediator in the associations between environmental factors and cognitive performance in a sample of preschoolers in the city of Buenos Aires. Out hypotheses were as follows: (1) poverty will mediate the associations between attention, inhibitory control, working memory, planning, and fluid reasoning and specific environmental factors (i.e., family composition, reception of social benefits, child health, health risk factors, children and adults at home, maternal age, years of preschool attendance, literacy activities, and access to computer resources) (e.g., Ronfani et al, 2015); (2) different patterns of mediation will be identified based on cognitive processes and environmental factors (Hackman, Gallop, Evans, & Farah, 2015; Lawson et al, 2014; Lipina et al, 2013); and (3) cognitive differences will be based on socioeconomic disparities (Fracchia et al, 2016; Segretin et al, 2014, 2016).

Results

Conclusion