Family Socioeconomic Status and Child Executive Functions: The Roles of Language, Home Environment, and Single Parenthood

Abstract

The association between family socioeconomic status (SES) and child executive functions is well-documented. However, few studies have examined the role of potential mediators and moderators. We studied the independent and interactive associations between family SES and single parenthood to predict child executive functions of inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory and examined child expressive language abilities and family home environment as potential mediators of these associations. Sixty families from diverse SES backgrounds with a school-age target child (mean [SD] age = 9.9 [0.96] years) were evaluated. Child executive functioning was measured using a brief battery. The quality of the home environment was evaluated using the Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment inventory. Family SES predicted the three child executive functions under study. Single parent and family SES were interactively associated with children's inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility; such that children from low SES families who were living with one parent performed less well on executive function tests than children from similarly low SES who were living with two parents. Parental responsivity, enrichment activities and family companionship mediated the association between family SES and child inhibitory control and working memory. This study demonstrates that family SES inequalities are associated with inequalities in home environments and with inequalities in child executive functions. The impact of these disparities as they unfold in the lives of typically developing children merits further investigation and understanding.

Working memory mediates the effects of gestational age at birth on expressive language development in children.

“…Regarding the environmental factors, our data showed that SES and HLE are directly associated with language, replicating previous findings (Farah et al, 2006;Hackman & Farah, 2009;Hart & Risley, 1992;Hoff & Tian, 2005;McKean et al, 2015;Noble et al, 2007;Roberts et al, 2005;Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2014;Wood, 2002). Moreover, consistently with the literature across kindergartners, first graders, and preadolescents (Evans & Schamberg, 2009;Farah et al, 2006;Hackman et al, 2014;Sarsour et al, 2011;Waber et al, 2007), disadvantaged SES was related to impaired temporary memory.…”

“…For example, SES in children attending primary school accounted for 5.5% of the variance in vWM (Noble et al, 2007). Similar correlations between SES and vWM have been shown in middle childhood (Sarsour et al, 2011) and in adolescence (Hackman et al, 2014;Waber et al, 2007), suggesting enduring effects.…”

“…Verbal temporary memory was found impaired in preterm individuals in a longitudinal cohort of 919 adults from the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study, supporting memory as a target of direct effects of prematurity and suggesting that such effects may have long-lasting consequences (Heinonen et al, 2015). Robust associations have also been found between both SES and HLE, and temporary memory (Evans & Schamberg, 2009;Farah et al, 2006;Hackman et al, 2014;Noble et al, 2007;Peterson, et al, 2013;Sarsour et al, 2011). For example, SES in children attending primary school accounted for 5.5% of the variance in vWM (Noble et al, 2007).…”

“…Interestingly, Sarsour et al (2011) showed that the association between SES and vWM was specifically mediated by elements of the child's home environment, including both parenting variables (i.e., responsivity and family companionship) and material resources available (i.e., enrichment activities), suggesting that some specific domains of home environment are crucial to the mechanism linking SES and vWM. While all the above evidence provides sufficient support to test verbal temporary memory as a mediator of environmental/biological effects upon language, it is still not clear which memory components might be involved.…”

Neurodevelopmental origins of lifespan changes in brain and cognition

“…We targeted early candidate factors that could potentially impact cortical area and general cognitive function, and hypothesized that such influences on brain and cognition in development would have continuous impacts. The targeted factors included pre-and neonatal biomedical health variables (26,27), specifically length of gestation (28), birth weight (26,27), and Apgar score obtained 5 min after birth (a measure of newborn vital signs) (29), as well as socioeconomic variables (30) [i.e., parental education, income, and single parenthood (31)]. An independent sample of twins was used to estimate the heritability of the surface area of the identified cortical regions, and how much of the phenotypic correlations of cortical area and GCA that could be accounted for by genetic factors.…”