A meta‐analysis of the relationship between socioeconomic status and executive function performance among children. Issue 2 (30th May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lawson, Gwendolyn M.; Hook, Cayce J.; Farah, Martha J.
• Is Part Of: Developmental science. Volume 21:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2017-05-30
• Subjects: Developmental psychology -- Periodicals; Psychology, Comparative -- Periodicals; 155
• DOI: 10.1111/desc.12529
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1363-755X

Abstract

Abstract: The relationship between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and executive function (EF) has recently attracted attention within psychology, following reports of substantial SES disparities in children's EF. Adding to the importance of this relationship, EF has been proposed as a mediator of socioeconomic disparities in lifelong achievement and health. However, evidence about the relationship between childhood SES and EF is mixed, and there has been no systematic attempt to evaluate this relationship across studies. This meta‐analysis systematically reviewed the literature for studies in which samples of children varying in SES were evaluated on EF, including studies with and without primary hypotheses about SES. The analysis included 8760 children between the ages of 2 and 18 gathered from 25 independent samples. Analyses showed a small but statistically significant correlation between SES and EF across all studies ( r random = .16, 95% CI [.12, .21]) without correcting for attenuation owing to range restriction or measurement unreliability. Substantial heterogeneity was observed among studies, and a number of factors, including the amount of SES variability in the sample and the number of EF measures used, emerged as moderators. Using only the 15 studies with meaningful SES variability in the sample, the average correlation between SES and EF was small‐to‐medium in size ( r random = .22, 95% CI [.17, .27]). Using only the six studies with multiple measures of EF, the relationship was medium in size ( r random = .28, 95% CI [.18, .37]). In sum, this meta‐analysis supports the presence of SES disparities in EF and suggests that they are between small and medium in size, depending on the methods used to measure them. Abstract : With growing interest in the cognitive correlates of socioeconomic status (SES) a number of studies have reported that children's executive function (EF) correlates with their SES. However, the EF‐SES relationship has not yet been evaluated systematically across studies. In this meta‐analysis of studies of EF in samples of children varying in SES, substantial heterogeneity of effect size were found, with small but significant correlations overall, and small‐to‐medium correlations for studies with more SES variability and more EF measure