Child cognitive development in rural poverty. Studies by an interdisciplinary team

HERMIDA M.J.

Los Andes

Otro; 7th Latin American School for Cognitive Sciences, Neural Sciences and Education; 2018

James Mc Donell Foundation

While poverty all over the world is more typical and extreme in rural settings, interventions to improve cognition in low socioeconomic status (SES) children are for the most part based on studies conducted in urban populations. I will present the results of two studies in child cognitive development in rural context aimed to fill this gap.In the first study we analyze how poverty in rural contexts affects child cognitive performance and compare it to urban context. Also, we studied which aspects of context (rural and urban) and SES pose the main risks to cognitive development. Differences between children?s scores in rural and urban settings were observed and some variables emerged as candidates to explain those differences.In the second study, we did a zoom-in on low SES rural preschoolers? cognition to analyze which environmental and individual variables could explain better individual cognitive differences in that context. We identified one dimension of temperament as a predictor of individual differences in non-verbal learning achievement.Both studies, that should inform educational interventions and programs, were seeded by networking and exchanges of ideas that started in previous LA School editions.