Abstract
The cognitive abilities and development of academic skills are very crucial for the intellectual development process of a child. Socioeconomic status plays a critical role in influencing the intellectual development processes of a child. Parents’ socioeconomic status encompasses the family’s income level, education levels, occupation, physical heals, psychological wellbeing, housing conditions, environment, and neighborhood characteristics of the parents. Recent studies have shown that the impacts of socioeconomic impacts differ with the age of children. This study has primarily focused on children by identifying and evaluating three recent studies having different approaches to how socioeconomic status influences a child’s intellectual development.
Introduction
The cognitive development process entails an individual’s cognitive, emotional, genetic, cerebral, and behavioral processes. Infectious, nutritional, and toxic factors are likely to influence the neuropsychological domains of an individual during their cognitive development, neuropsychological domains during a child’s upbringing and the socioeconomic status of the parents (Farah, 2018). Socioeconomic status provides a significant reflection on cognitive well-being of a child and can be measured through monetary and social statuses of a child’s parents. Individuals for the most concepts agrees that there is a solid and stable relationship among socioeconomic status and a child’s intellectual development. However, various studies have shown conflicting resultsSocioeconomic status is considered to be a complex construct that takes into consideration several factors. Among the factors housed in the socioeconomic construct are; income of the family, education levels, occupation, physical heals, psychological wellbeing, housing conditions, environment and neighbourhood characteristics (Vreeland et al., 2019). Taking into account the variance in the scores of children in an executive function test. Brito et al. (2018) states that the education level and occupations of parents had more than 14% influence in the scores. Families having more considerable income can be associated with high levels of education attained by the parents, have better housing conditions, great stimulation of child’s cognitive wellbeing and enhanced cognitive performances in children.
Low levels of socioeconomic status can be associated with negative impacts on the intellectual development of a child. Moreover, McDemott et al. (2019) states that low socioeconomic status has been used to predict individuals’ executive and language functions. The relationship can mediate the influence of socioeconomic status on executive functions during the infant stage between the parent and the child and their ability in stress regulation (Greenfield and Morman, 2019). Recent studies show the existence of high executive scores obtained by children having better living conditions and their parents attaining a high level of education.
A significant neurological abnormality experienced by children at a lower age and who are under low socioeconomic statuses suggests a lasting impact of prenatal conditions. A longitudinal study carried out by Brito et al. (2018) on the association linking socioeconomic statuses with language and memory development in children under different age groups found out that there exist poor performances in children whose parents had low levels of education.
However, there exist studies that have proven that low socioeconomic status can be used as a motivational factor by children to enhance their intellectual development. Reiss et al. (2019) provides speculation by stating that low socioeconomic status can significantly influence intellectual development in countries with low social advancements and lesser educational developments. Socioeconomic status impacts can be associated with reduced stimulation in linguistics, heighted stress levels, and poor performance. These negative influences have been more adverse among children from developed countries than children from less developed countries.
Chen et al. (2018) posit that socioeconomic status inequalities are related to the difference in children’s memory, executive functions, and educational achievements. They further state that socioeconomic status has a close relationship with the structural and functional difference in their neural in the broader range of cortical area.
The critical review has utilized three current studies to examine the impacts of socioeconomic status on the intellectual development of a child. The review of the three studies has been done in line with their contributions to the intellectual development of children. Their review has been carried out regarding their limitations and possible advancements to provide better insight into the three studies.
Summary of Papers
Judd et al. (2020)
This study presents the various factors that play a significant role in the intellectual development of a child. The factors stressed in the study are socioeconomic status and genetic factors. The study has utilized a socioeconomic status score and polygenic scores to determine children’s intellectual development. The study first carried out global measures of cortical surface area and scores from three working memory tasks (Judd et al., 2020). The study further split the socioeconomic factor into several sub-components to determine how such sub-components were related to the intellectual development of a child.
By splitting socioeconomic status into sub components, it can be revealed that there is a significant association linking working memory and parental education (Assari et al, 2018). Furthermore, the study showed that the polygenic scores of parents’ education attainment had a weaker association with the working memory of children under the age of 14. This kind of association was weaker. This shows that parents’ educational attainment as a subcomponent of socioeconomic status does not play a significant role in the intellectual development of a child. The study further showed that poverty has a strong negative relationship with the intellectual development of a child. This means that poverty and education levels hinder the ability of a child to develop intellectually. The level of educational attainment of the parent, parents, and the mother influences the intellectual development of a child as the study shows that maternal education majorly offered by mothers plays a significant role in predicting a child’s intellectual development compared to paternalism education.
However, there exist several limitations that are associated with the study. The study only factored in children of European ancestry. The study is limited to European children shows that the study results are only limited to European children. However, there are many children from other ethnic backgrounds whose intellectual development is influenced by socioeconomic status. Moreover, European nations are considered to be developed. Therefore, the study results might show many inconsistencies when used to determine how socioeconomic status influences the intellectual development of children in less developed countries.
The study focused on determining the environmental predictors of the intellectual development of children. The study removed any trace of genetic variations that might be inherited by children that would negatively impact the study. However, some environmental factors might influence the intellectual development of a child. By not blocking the environmental factors in the study, the results of the study are biased to a certain level. Furthermore, gene modulation has a close association with sociocultural status. There also exist some parental genes, however not passed to the child, that can influence the environment in which a child develops.
Burneo et al. (2019)
The study presented a connection between socioeconomic status and children’s cognitive development under different age groups. The study utilized Spanish-speaking school children from Guayaquil. to have deep insight into the influence of socioeconomic status. The total number of participants that took part in the study were 247. This study population size is sufficient enough to provide a good representation of the total population.The study divided its study population into medium socioeconomic status and low socioeconomic status. The intellectual development of the participants was determined using several approaches such as simple reaction time test, visual-motor coordination, sustained attention, verbal and visual memory, language, and executive function. The study findings showed that the reaction of time of children differed with respect to age. Children in the 11-year bracket had a significantly higher reaction time than children under seven and nine years old. This shows that despite the socioeconomic status, children are able to develop at a specific rate and such intellectual development increases with age.
However, while factoring in various sociocultural status components such as parents’ education levels, level of income and the surrounding environments of children, it was realized that children from medium sociocultural status were seen to have a significantly shorter reaction time than children from low socioeconomic status families. The high reaction time among children from low socioeconomic status can be interpreted that low socioeconomic status negatively influences cognitive development (Reng and Kievit, 2020). This makes them process things slowly compared to children from medium and high socioeconomic status families. In determining the verbal memory scores of the two groups, children from medium socioeconomic status families had higher scores than children from low socioeconomic families. Besides verbal memory, children from medium socioeconomic status were higher scores than children from low socioeconomic status. It can be seen the socioeconomic status of a child influences their ability to recall. Therefore, low socioeconomic status can be associated with delayed ability to recall, while higher socioeconomic status children had the ability to have an immediate recall.
In determining abstract reasoning through correct responses, the executive functionality of children from parents under medium socioeconomic status had a higher significant score in providing correct responses than children from low socioeconomic families. The study shows that there exist negative impacts of low socioeconomic status on neuropsychological development. Furthermore, significantly worse neurocognitive performances are likely to be experienced in children under the age of below five years. In determining the effects of the distinct components of socioeconomic status, poverty has been seen to result in impoverished intellectual development and performance of a child. There exists a significant impact of socioeconomic status on the development of executive functions and language of a child. In this study, a child’s executive functions have been associated with motor inhibition and abstract reasoning. The difference between socioeconomic status groups is likely to reflect differences in how they approach task executions.
The study further proposes that success in performance may be associated with behaviours that differ between various socioeconomic groups. The finding of the study presented in this research lacks homogeneity but relies on the child’s age. It can be stipulated that various elements of executive functioning, language, and verbal memory greatly rely on a child’s age (Wang and Geng, 2019). In determining the various components of socioeconomic status that greatly influenced neuropsychological performances, housing risk index, education level of parents, head of household and social class played a significant role in influencing neuropsychological performances of children (Hamadani et al., 2020). In determining phonetic fluency, inhibition and planning, the main predictors identified from the study were the parents’ educational levels and housing conditions. The reasoning of children is also influenced by the economic status of the parents, the level of education of parents and the general environment in which the child grows up.
Despite the design of the study being aimed to prevent the drawing of conclusions from the direct influence that age has on the intellectual development of a child, the review didn’t clarify the differential impacts of socio-enthusiastic and neuropsychological improvement of the particular parts of low financial status such as infant abuse and malnutrition. Furthermore, the study carried out an evaluation of neuropsychological domains by conducting an analysis of the correct response and times for reaction; however, the study did not consider the error measurements. Error measurements provide helpful information in determining the perseverance and impulsiveness of tasks. Additionally, the study utilized only two groups within the socioeconomic status construct, the middle and low socioeconomic statuses. By failing to include a high socioeconomic class, the results of the study can be regarded as biased and inconclusive as it does not consider the whole population.
Chen et al. (2018)
The study investigates the association linking the socioeconomic status of families and the reading ability of children. The study utilized primary data collection methods to collect data. Moreover, the study utilized random sampling in determining the children who took part in the study. The study further focuses on analyzing the significance of cognitive abilities and academic skills in the intellectual development of children. In this study, the socioeconomic status of participants included in the study was measured concerning parents’ education level, income level, and family property. From a longitudinal perspective, the study shows that the cognitive abilities of a child and their academic achievements should be able to predict each other. The concentrate further shows that the age impact assumes a critical part in deciding the scholarly advancement of a youngster. The review used a group irregular examining technique to enlist center younger students from grades 8 to 11 in Beijing and Guangzhou.
The study results show a positive association linking reading ability of a child and family socioeconomic status, motivation towards learning, and the relationship between a child and their parents. The study showed that the reading ability of females was significantly higher compared to males. The study controlled the gender factor intending to decrease the spurious effects to develop conclusive results. According to Noble and Giebler (2020) can be deduced that reading ability is greatly influenced by family socioeconomic status. In this study, the effects of socioeconomic statuses on children’s reading ability are being mediated by the relationship between the child and the parent. Motivation also plays a significant role in determining the intellectual development of a child (Benavente et al., 2019). The study further established that the higher the education levels of a parent, occupational prestige, and income influence the readability of children.
There is a connection among neediness and low financial status for antagonistic youngster results, including low IQ, instructive accomplishment and accomplishment, and expanded socio-enthusiastic issues (Burneo et al., 2019). One more basic record of financial status is parental instructive level, and it goes about as a one of a kind indicator of a kid’s scholarly turn of events. With respect to occupation, low occupation status by and large shows weighty actual work, long working hours, low wages, and temperamental working open doors. This outcomes in guardians having less time supporting their kids in their scholarly turn of events.
There exist several limitations associated with the study. The first limitation is that the data utilized in the study was analyzed at an individual level; however, the relation between children’s reading ability and socioeconomic status may vary with respect to higher level variables such as the kind of school a child attends and their class.
Conclusion
With the findings obtained from the study, it is proper to state that in determining a child’s intellectual development, socioeconomic factors play a very significant role in influencing the child’s cognitive development. The standard variables shared by the three studies that define socioeconomic status were parents’ education levels, income levels, surrounding environments, the relationship between the child and the parent. The three studies have shown that low socioeconomic status has detrimental effects on intellectual development. In contrast, high socioeconomic status has a positive impact on a child’s intellectual development. Moreover, age also plays a critical role in a child’s neuropsychological development. Verbal memory, image comprehension, phonemic fluency, reasoning, and inhibitory control are intellectual development aspects influenced by age. The more a child develops, the more those areas also develop. The shared socioeconomic status factor that significantly impacts a child’s intellectual development is poverty from the three studies. Therefore, long term preventive strategies should be developed to help mitigate poverty.
Core References
Burneo-Garcés, C., Cruz-Quintana, F., Pérez-García, M., Fernández-Alcántara, M., Fasfous, A. and Pérez-Marfil, M.N., 2019. Interaction between socioeconomic status and cognitive development in children aged 7, 9, and 11 years: a cross-sectional study. Developmental Neuropsychology, 44(1), pp.1-16.
Chen, Q., Kong, Y., Gao, W. and Mo, L., 2018. Effects of socioeconomic status, parent–child relationship, and learning motivation on reading ability. Frontiers in psychology, 9, p.1297.
Judd, N., Sauce, B., Wiedenhoeft, J., Tromp, J., Chaarani, B., Schliep, A., van Noort, B., Penttilä, J., Grimmer, Y., Insensee, C. and Becker, A., 2020. Cognitive and brain development is independently influenced by socioeconomic status and polygenic scores for educational attainment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(22), pp.12411-12418.
Additional References
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