Executive functions mediate the relationships between poverty conditions and school performance

CELINA GRACIELA KORZENIOWSKI

Londres

Simposio; The Oxford Symposium in School-Based Family Counseling; 2018

Institute for School-Based Family Counseling, University of San Francisco

School performance (SP) is a complex process involving multiple personal and contextual factors. Understanding how poverty conditions cause an early academic and long-lasting risk in children is of utmost importance. A possible line of study is the analysis of the effects of poverty upon cognitive development, specifically upon executive functions (EFs), as these are considered to be one of the cognitive systems that are most sensitive to environmental influence. This study aims at analyzing whether EFs may predict the SP of children from different low socioeconomic strata, having controlled the effects of age and socioeconomic status (SES). The sample included 178 Argentine children of both genders (52% boys), between 6 and 10 years of age, belonging to the upper-low SES (41%), lower-low SES (39%) and marginal SES (20%). The children were evaluated by means of a battery of neuropsychological EF and school achievement tests. The proposed model accounted for 69% of the SP of the children. EFs were the most significant direct predictor, and, in addition, mediated the relationship between SES and SP. These results indicate that the impoverishment of family material and sociocultural conditions is associated with a lower EF performance among children, which negatively impacts their SP. In line with the School-Based Family Counseling (SBFC) model, these results provide evidence of the critical role of the family in the successful school trajectory of children, and demonstrate the need to design early and ecological interventions aimed at improving children's cognitive and school performance. The success of these interventions will be greater if they are inserted within the natural contexts of child development, in order to incorporate and strengthen family and school resources. It is concluded that implementing ecological interventions that enrich the everyday practices of children at social risk is a way to narrow the persisting academic gap associated with poverty conditions.