How Living in Vulnerable Conditions Undermines Cognitive Development: Evidence from the Pediatric Population of Guatemala

Abstract

Low-socioeconomic backgrounds represent a risk factor for children’s cognitive development and well-being. Evidence from many studies highlights that cognitive processes may be adversely affected by vulnerable contexts. The aim of this study was to determine if living in vulnerable conditions affects childhood cognitive development. To achieve this, we assessed the performance of a sample of 347 Guatemalan children and adolescents aged from 6 to 17 years (M = 10.8, SD = 3) in a series of 10 neuropsychological tasks recently standardized for the pediatric population of this country. Two-fifths of the sample (41.5%) could be considered to have vulnerable backgrounds, coming from families with low-socioeconomic status or having had a high exposure to violence. As expected, results showed lower scores in language and attention for the vulnerable group. However, contrary to expectations, consistent systematic differences were not found in the executive function tasks. Vulnerable children obtained lower scores in cognitive flexibility compared to the non-vulnerable group, but higher scores in inhibition and problem-solving tasks. These results suggest the importance of developing pediatric standards of cognitive performance that take environmental vulnerable conditions into consideration. These findings, one of the first obtained in the Guatemalan population, also provide relevant information for specific educational interventions and public health policies which will enhance vulnerable children and adolescent cognitive development.

Communicative Functions in Children Raised in Three Different Social Contexts in Colombia: The Key Issue of Joint Attention

“…Fernald et al (2013) found that significant disparities in vocabulary and language processing efficiency were already evident at 18 months among infants from families with different SES and that at 24 months there was a 6-month gap in critical processing skills for language development between those infants. In a more recent study carried out with 347 Guatemalan children and adolescents, from 6 to 17 years of age, the results showed lower scores in language and attention with respect to the 41.5% of the sample who had a vulnerable background (they came from families with a low socioeconomic level or had had a high exposure to violence) (Ibáñez-Alfonso et al, 2021). According to Locke et al (2002) and Ginsborg (2006), many low-income children already have a noticeable delay in the development of their language ability by the time they turn three years old.…”

Normative Data for Ten Neuropsychological Tests for the Guatemalan Pediatric Population Updated to Account for Vulnerability

“…In the samples used to create the norms, there was a higher number of younger children (around 6 years old) than adolescents. Subsequently, we conducted a project focused on the Guatemalan population, which is characterized by high violence and poverty rates [21]. The term "update" in this case stands for the fact of upgrading the previously existing data for the Guatemalan population by adding more adolescents to the sample and by considering the vulnerability of the sample.…”

“…In order to obtain a comprehensive view of how cognitive processes work in these children and adolescents, we chose tests that assess praxia, memory, language and executive function processes. These tests were used in a previous study that laid the foundation for the current work [21]. The ROCF test assesses multiple skills, such as memory, motor, perceptive and attention [45].…”

“…Recent studies have examined the magnitude of differences in performance on neuropsychological tasks between vulnerable and nonvulnerable children and adolescent populations [21]. Based on their results, the authors of this article consider it necessary to adapt the current standards to include the vulnerability status of the assessed population.…”

“…Based on their results, the authors of this article consider it necessary to adapt the current standards to include the vulnerability status of the assessed population. Diverse studies already offer information about how vulnerability affects children's development through the structural and functional impacts on an infant's brain [22][23][24], and as a consequence, performance in the main cognitive processes are affected (for review, see Ibáñez-Alfonso et al [21]).…”