Cognitive Ability at Kindergarten Entry and Socioeconomic Status

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To examine how gradients in socioeconomic status (SES) impact US children's reading and math ability at kindergarten entry and determine the contributions of family background, health, home learning, parenting, and early education factors to those gradients.METHODS: Analysis of 6600 children with cognitive assessments at kindergarten entry from the US Early Childhood Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study. A composite SES measure based on parent's occupation, education, and income was divided into quintiles. Wald F tests assessed bivariate associations between SES and child's cognitive ability and candidate explanatory variables. A decomposition methodology examined mediators of early cognitive gradients.RESULTS: Average reading percentile rankings increased from 34 to 67 across SES quintiles and math from 33 to 70. Children in lower SES quintiles had younger mothers, less frequent parent reading, less home computer use (27%-84%), and fewer books at home (26-114). Parent's supportive interactions, expectations for their child to earn a college degree (57%-96%), and child's preschool attendance (64%-89%) increased across quintiles. Candidate explanatory factors explained just over half the gradients, with family background factors explaining 8% to 13%, health factors 4% to 6%, home learning environment 18%, parenting style/beliefs 14% to 15%, and early education 6% to 7% of the gaps between the lowest versus highest quintiles in reading and math.CONCLUSIONS: Steep social gradients in cognitive outcomes at kindergarten are due to many factors. Findings suggest policies targeting levels of socioeconomic inequality and a range of early childhood interventions are needed to address these disparities. WHAT'S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT:Previous research has established steep socioeconomic status gradients in children' s cognitive ability at kindergarten entry. Few studies have had comprehensive data to examine the contribution of a wide range of risk and protective factors across early childhood to these gradients.WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS: Family background, health, home learning, parenting, and early care and education factors explain over half the gaps in reading and math ability between US children in the lowest versus highest socioeconomic status quintiles, suggesting a need for comprehensive early interventions.

Positive Parenting Practices, Health Disparities, and Developmental Progress

“…10,11 Interactive parenting practices that provide cognitive stimulation to a child, such as reading, talking, and playing, promote the development of early childhood language skills, which in turn affect school readiness and subsequent educational achievement. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Combined with emerging neurobiological research showing caregiving as a protective influence from the impact of poverty on the structure of the developing brain, there exists a strong rationale to encourage interactive caregiving practices during the first 3 years of life when critical neuronal and synaptic brain processes are forming. [18][19][20][21] To that end, the pediatric, public health, and scientific communities have called on pediatricians to encourage daily interactive activities and routines, including reading, playing, telling stories, and eating meals together to promote early child development and education.…”

Predictors of Poor School Readiness in Children Without Developmental Delay at Age 2

“…Academic scores were assessed in the ECLS-B kindergarten waves by using direct measures of early literacy (basic language and literacy skills, vocabulary, understanding, and interpretation) and mathematics (number sense, counting, operations, geometry, and pattern understanding), adapted from validated tools (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and PreLAS 2000) for use in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K). These measures are described in detail elsewhere 33,42 and have been associated with early school function. 34 Poor academic school readiness was defined as an item response theory score ≥1 SD below the mean on early reading or mathematics tests.…”

“…Childlevel variables included sex, 15,34,47 race/ethnicity, 34, 50 -52 gestational age (<34, 34-36 weeks, and ≥37 weeks), 15,47,53,54 low birth weight (<2500 g), 10, 34, 47 parentreported child health status, 50 breastfeeding history (0-3 months or ≥4 months), 55 enrollment in Medicaid, 56,57 enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, [56][57][58] participation in a center-based child care program, 59 whether the child combines words at age 2 years, 60 and parent's expectation for the child's educational attainment. 33,59 Family-level variables included mother's age, 49 highest level of parental education, 10,33,49 household income and poverty status, 10,33,49,50,56,61 whether both parents live with the child, 34,49,62 primary language spoken at home (English or other language), 51,52 whether parent is a US citizen, 63 self-reported parental 3…”

“…30 -32 Predicting which of these children are on such a downward trajectory likely requires assessment of family psycho-social variables. Previous studies have demonstrated steep socioeconomic gradients in cognitive outcomes at school entry 33 and have highlighted strong effects of social variables, such as maternal education, on the persistence or improvement of early developmental delays. 10 Other studies have reported associations of cognitive and social functioning at kindergarten entry with longer term academic 13, 34 -37 and health outcomes, 38 suggesting that poor school readiness may be linked to serious downstream consequences such as school failure, disease, and even mortality.…”

Health Disparities: A Life Course Health Development Perspective and Future Research Directions

“…Early parent health and health practices, including maternal mental health status in particular, have also been associated with SES gradients in children's behavior problems, general health status, and obesity (Kahn et al 2005;Khanam et al 2009;Propper et al 2007). For cognitive outcomes, health factors like mother's preconception obesity, breastfeeding, and depression appear to make a small contribution to early gradients by SES along with a wide variety of additional early risk and protective factors (Dearden et al 2011;Larson et al 2015).…”