Socioeconomic Risk and School Readiness: Longitudinal Mediation Through Children's Social Competence and Executive Function

Abstract

The association of socioeconomic status with academic readiness and school achievement is well established. However, the specific contributions of cognitive and social aspects of self-regulation, and potential reciprocal relations between them in the prediction of school readiness and early school achievement have not previously been examined. This study examined mediational processes involving children's executive function (EF) skills at 58 months and Grade 1 (G1) and social competence in Kindergarten (K) and G1, as potential pathways by which early-life poverty-related risks influence Grade 2 (G2) math and reading achievement. Data came from the Family Life Project, which is a prospective longitudinal study of 1,292 children and families followed from birth in primarily low-income, non-urban counties in Pennsylvania (PA) and North Carolina (NC). Autoregressive cross-lagged mediation analyses indicated that EF at 58 months through EF at G1 mediated negative associations between cumulative risk exposure and academic skills, with this pathway mediating 36% of the total effect. Furthermore, social competence at K through EF at G1 mediated negative associations between early-life cumulative socioeconomic risk and academic skills, mediating 16% of the total effect. These findings provide evidence that poverty-related risks can influence school readiness and academic achievement via EF. Additionally, these results provide preliminary support for the premise that social competence through EF is a pathway by which cumulative poverty-related risk predicts early academic competence. Our findings are consistent with studies demonstrating developmental associations between EF and social competence. Furthermore, our findings are consistent with prekindergarten programs for children in poverty that emphasize both cognitive and social aspects of self-regulation.

Catechol-O-methyltransferase Val158Met Genotype and Early-Life Family Adversity Interactively Affect Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Symptoms Across Childhood

“…We found that negative caregiving in infancy independently predicted a child’s ADHD symptom severity across childhood, and SES-risk predicted inattention symptom severity across childhood, but not hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms. Our findings are supported by animal studies showing that adverse environmental conditions and reprogramming of HPA axis impact the development of the mesocortical and mesolimbic DA system in limbic regions and the PFC ( Tost et al, 2015 ), and by human studies reporting that exposure to early adversity during the first years of life elevates the likelihood of poor neurobehavioral development, impairs attention and self-regulation skills, and increases the risk for mental disorders ( Yoshikawa et al, 2012 ; Blair and Raver, 2016 ; Perry et al, 2018 ).…”

Enhancing Executive Functions Through Social Interactions: Causal Evidence Using a Cross-Species Model

“…The attainment of appropriate social skills through social interactions with peers (in addition to caregivers) may be an important driving component of EF development. In line with this idea, we recently reported findings of a novel developmental pathway whereby social competence through EF longitudinally mediated the impact of cumulative poverty-related adversities on academic achievement across the early school years (Perry et al, 2018a). Specifically, social competence in Kindergarten through EFs at Grade 1 longitudinally mediated a negative association between early-life poverty-related cumulative risk exposure and academic skills at Grade 2.…”

“…Thus, it is plausible that scarcity–adversity induced differences in working memory might co-occur with problems related to inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. However, working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility differ in their developmental trajectories, and are subserved by overlapping but unique neural networks (for review see Perry et al, 2018a) which could be differentially impacted by scarcity–adversity. Thus, it is also plausible that scarcity–adversity might uniquely impact the development of each core EF based on the developmental timing of adversity exposure and/or the mechanisms by which adversity influences the developing brain areas underlying EF development.…”

“…Furthermore, we face difficulties in readily discerning cause–effect relations between social processes and EF development due to lack of experimental control within research designs involving humans. Thus, in the present study, we expanded upon our prior human findings (Perry et al, 2018a) by leveraging a rodent model with high internal validity to experimentally test our overarching hypothesis that EF development can be enhanced by targeting the improvement of social skills through facilitated social interactions. We focus specifically on the functional interplay between social development and working memory, a core EF which involves the ability to hold in mind, manipulate, and update information in one’s memory (Diamond, 2013).…”

“…We additionally sought to replicate and expand upon previous results demonstrating that early-life scarcity–adversity would cause social behavior problems in juvenile and adolescent rats (Raineki et al, 2012, 2015; Rincón-Cortés and Sullivan, 2016). Furthermore, drawing from our prior human research findings suggesting that social development influences EF development (Perry et al, 2018a), we hypothesized that socializing a scarcity–adversity reared subject with a control reared rat (via co-housing) would improve the scarcity–adversity reared subject’s social behavior and working memory performance. We tested this using a peer socialization intervention spanning from time of weaning until time of testing in peri-adolescence, a developmental period which encompasses the maturation of social behavior and is increasingly thought of as a period in which neurodevelopment is sensitive to social experiences (Sisk and Foster, 2004; Schulz et al, 2009; Wei et al, 2011; Fuhrmann et al, 2015).…”