Linking childhood poverty and cognition: Environmental mediators of non-verbal executive control in an argentine sample

LIPINA S.J.; SEGRETIN M.S.; HERMIDA M.J.; PRATS L.; FRACCHIA C.; LOPEZ CAMELO J. ; COLOMBO J.A.

Developmental Science

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Año: 2013 vol. 16 p. 697 - 707

1363-755X

Attentional control, working memory, and planning paradigms associated with prefrontal-executive subsystems have been administered to compare the non-verbal executive control performance of healthy children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, mediations of several sociodemographic variables, identified in the literature as part of the experience of child poverty, between socioeconomic status and cognitive performance have been assessed. Results have shown: (1) significant differences in performance between groups in most dependent variables analyzed -however, no in all variables associated with attentional control domains; (2) significant indirect effects of literacy activities on working memory and fluid processing domains, as well as computer resources effects on fluid processing; and (3) marginal indirect effects of computer resources on attentional control and working memory domains. These findings extend the impact of poverty analysis on the development of executive control, through information based on the assessment of combined neurocognitive paradigms, and the identification of specific environmental mediators from a viewpoint considering the specificity of child poverty.