Executive functions (EF) in children can be trained, but it remains unknown whether training-related benefits elicit far transfer to real-life situations. Here, we investigate whether a set of computerized games might yield near and far transfer on an experimental and an active control group of low-SES otherwise typically developing 6-y-olds in a 3-mo pretest-training-posttest design that was ecologically deployed (at school). The intervention elicits transfer to some (but not all) facets of executive function. These changes cascade to real-world measures of school performance. The intervention equalizes academic outcomes across children who regularly attend school and those who do not because of social and familiar circumstances.cognitive training intervention | school grades | Attention Network Test | school attendance | working memory T he efficacy of cognitive training is controversial and constitutes a current challenge for educational neuroscience research (1-4). Although it has been well documented that directed interventions in children can change specific cognitive functions (5-8), it is unknown whether those translate to broader contexts and real-world situations of educational pertinence. Cognitive training has largely focused on executive functions (EF) (6-8), a class of processes critical for purposeful, goal-directed behavior, including working memory (WM), planning, and cognitive control (6). Research has shown that EF capabilities can be improved with practice and gaming interventions (5-7, 9). These results are particularly promising because EF are critical for educational success (10-12) and for mental and physical health (5, 13); furthermore, early self-regulation is indicative of an individual's health and social behavior as an adult (14,15).Because the degree of self-regulation elicited by a child can predict real-life outcomes, it is presumed that an intervention that improves EF should affect a child educational success. However, this hypothesis has never been explicitly examined based on school grades as real-world measurements of educational achievement (16). Instead, current evidence (7, 9, 17, 18) derives from laboratory measures related to school performance (for instance, the time it takes for a child to read a word). Because school performance results from an intertwined process integrating EF with temperament, socioeconomic status (SES), and cognitive skills (19-22) among other environmental factors, examining the direct outcome of an intervention on school grades is necessary to assure its practical pertinence.Our main hypothesis is that a gaming intervention in schoolage children tuned to improve aspects of EF should transfer to real-world manifestations of school performance indexed by children's grades.In the educational system of the City of Buenos Aires, first graders devote an important amount of their school time to language and math. Grading for these subjects is largely based on objective tasks and they are examined extensively. Instead, other subjects (such as foreign la...

Tests of attentional control, working memory, and planning were 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 were assessed. Results show: (1) significant differences in performance between groups in most dependent variables analyzed - however, not 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 analysis of the impact of poverty on the development of executive control, through information based on the assessment of combined neurocognitive paradigms and the identification of specific environmental mediators.

The association between socioeconomic status and child cognitive development, and the positive impact of interventions aimed at optimizing cognitive performance, are well-documented. However, few studies have examined how specific socio-environmental factors may moderate the impact of cognitive interventions among poor children. In the present study, we examined how such factors predicted cognitive trajectories during the preschool years, in two samples of children from Argentina, who participated in two cognitive training programs (CTPs) between the years 2002 and 2005: the School Intervention Program (SIP; N = 745) and the Cognitive Training Program (CTP; N = 333). In both programs children were trained weekly for 16 weeks and tested before and after the intervention using a battery of tasks assessing several cognitive control processes (attention, inhibitory control, working memory, flexibility and planning). After applying mixed model analyses, we identified sets of socio-environmental predictors that were associated with higher levels of pre-intervention cognitive control performance and with increased improvement in cognitive control from pre- to post-intervention. Child age, housing conditions, social resources, parental occupation and family composition were associated with performance in specific cognitive domains at baseline. Housing conditions, social resources, parental occupation, family composition, maternal physical health, age, group (intervention/control) and the number of training sessions were related to improvements in specific cognitive skills from pre- to post-training.