family SES in childhood seems to affect the general cognitive performance IQ but some neuropsychological systems more than in others, particularly memory episodic, working and semantic , oral and written language and executive functions Hackman et al. Starting from the importance of empirically investigate this issue and provide evidence to support prevention and intervention programs in child development, the aim of this study was to compare the effect of family SES and specifically parental education between age ranges regarding IQ performance, language oral and written , memory episodic, semantic and working and executive functions inhibitory components and cognitive flexibility, in particular in children from 6 to 12 years old.
The hypothesis was that the relationship between low socioeconomic status including low parental education and lower performance in IQ and in the assessed tasks Ardila et al. This study intends to give a better comprehension about this issue in Brazil, providing evidences from a large sample, using classical measures of SES and neuropsychological tasks based on traditional paradigms besides IQ measures , with robust statistical analysis, that could be the basis for rethinking public policies that promote child development.
This is a quantitative, descriptive-explanatory study. The dependent variables are IQ and performance in tasks that assess language, verbal memory, working memory and executive functions. The independent variables are children age, parental education and family socioeconomic status according to a survey of the Brazilian Association of Research Companies - ABEP , an index combining parental education and income that characterizes the family socioeconomic status.
A total of Brazilian children selected by convenience sampling, The children, without grade repetition, monolinguals basic English classes in their schools and native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, with no history of neurological or psychiatric illnesses, uncorrected auditory and visual impairments, according to a questionnaire completed by the parents, belonged to families of SES A No performance differences were found on the cognitive tasks evaluated in this study in children aged 6—7 years old, 8—9 years old and 10, 11 and 12 years old.
We then decided to split the sample in these three age ranges. According to a study of Brito , the cutoff point suggested for the Brazilian population is a performance above the 90 th percentile. We only evaluate children who fit the inclusion criteria. No child was excluded after cognitive assessment.
The schools were selected by convenience sampling and the names of the students from each grade were randomly selected draw. The following memory tasks were used for this study: digit span forward and backward maximum score: 28 points , pseudoword span maximum score: 20 points , visuospatial working memory similar to Corsi Blocks, but on 2 D, maximum score: 28 points , immediate recall of a list of nine words, immediate recall of nine figures showed to children visuoverbal episodic memory and semantic memory 4 general knowledge questions — 1 point each.
For assessment of language: rhyme task children had to say which words rhyme, total score of 4 points , phonemic subtraction take off one phoneme of a composite three-letter syllable, total score of 6 points , listening comprehension 5 points , inferential processing total score of 8 points , reading aloud 17 points , reading comprehension total score of 5 points , spelling total score of 19 points , spontaneous writing and written copies of words.
First, the construction of measurement models will be described, and finally, the structural model. The indexes of adjustments of models are presented according to Byrne The following tasks were used: rhyme, phonemic subtraction, reading words and pseudowords, spontaneous writing and reading comprehension as indicators of the latent variable oral and written language.
The tasks digit span forward and backward , pseudoword span and visuospatial working memory composed the latent variable w